Please consider:
"... the watch that my uncle had given me."
- "my uncle" is the subject.
- "had given" is the main verb (past perfect).
so...
- "me" is an indirect object? or should it really be "had given to me" ? Either is ok, I think.
- "that" is a relative pronoun? the antecedent is "the watch" ?
- "the watch / (that)" must be the direct object of "had given" , so how can it precede "had given" ? Given the English sentence structure rules that I am aware of, I've no clue how to explain the placement of the direct object.
I'm a native speaker who teaches my friends by using sentence diagraming. I need some help. thanks.
addendum:
sorry. I should not have called " has given " the "main" verb. full sentence:
(full sentence): "I lost the watch that my uncle had given me."
(1) "me" does not effect the grammar, so I'll drop it.
(2) "that" sounds like a conjunction (not a relative pronoun), and it is natural in English to drop "that" when it is a conjunction. This does not change the grammar.
(stripped down sentence) "I lost the watch my uncle had given."
- can "watch" really be the direct object of two verb???
- or, is "that" really a relative pronoun. If so, then "that" can be the direct object of "had given" and "watch" can be the direct object of "lost" . Further, dropping "that" , even though it sounds natural, creates an incorrect grammatical structure.
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