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It sounds off to me. I think the problem is with whose and somewhat with the placement of the I.
How about something like:
“I reached a sentence that I, having understood its meaning, couldn't figure out how it meant that.â€
Because the "having understood" refers all the way back to the initial I, rather than to sentence, it is a little inverted and more difficult to parse.
I agree with Glenn that it sounds off. I thought it was mostly because there's an old rule that "who" is for people; for inanimate objects you use "which". But I was wrong; that doesn't solve the problem. (And anyway I've never been sure that rule was ever more than a guideline; I violate it consciously in other sentences like yours.)
Ok, next: You really need a comma before "having": "I reached a sentence which, having understood whose meaning, I couldn't figure out how it meant that." Better, but there's still something wrong.
"I reached a sentence which, having understood its meaning, I couldn't figure out how it meant that." Better yet. Apparently after "having understood" you don't need a relative pronoun at all. Still not right, though.
Ah, got it! "Which", as a relative pronoun, must be the subject or object of a subordinate clause. Take out the intervening clause ("having understood its meaning") and you'll see the problem: "I reached a sentence which I couldn't figure out how it meant that." You can say "I reached a sentence which I couldn't understand", or "I reached a sentence the meaning of which I couldn't understand", or "I reached a sentence whose meaning I couldn't understand". But if you want to end up with "I couldn't understand how it meant that", then you've already filled in both the subject ("it") and the object ("that"); there's no more room for "which". You'll have to recast the sentence using extra words, for example "I reached a sentence which puzzled me: Having understood its meaning, I couldn't figure out how it meant that."
I've read older novels in which someone used "which" as a sort of general conjunction to mean "regarding what we were just talking about". Someone would exclaim "where's dinner? I'm hungry!", and a servant, coming into the room, might say "Which it's on the table this instant". But even in those novels, that use of "which" was considered uneducated.
I'm curious how you would have said it in Farsi. Is there a particle there which you can use like that, as we cannot in English?
Not completely matching your definition, there's 'اناش' ("enaash") with some variations, that means 'here/there it is', and is used only in answer to an inquiry, as 'Where's dinner?'or some imperative inquiry that is not quite translatable. It's colloquial.
There's also 'بیا', which literally means 'come!' (imperative). It's also colloquial.
Now that I think, the Arabic equivalent for 'here' is 'هنا' (honna), which is somewhat similar to 'انا' (enna), one variation of 'اناش'.
(Both are sometimes avoided where meant to be polite, even in informal situations).
Bob Bridges said
"which" as a sort of general conjunction to mean "regarding what we were just talking about".
This 'which' is out right bad, though it happens quite often:
They thought he was uneducated, which he was not
This is slightly better, though only just:
They thought he was uneducated, which was not true
But it seems 'which' happens that way all the time.
RobertB, I didn't think of that during my peroration above; it wasn't really what I was talking about in the part you quoted. But now that you've cited the example, I'm struck by doubt: Are you sure it's wrong?
The only thing that's required to make it alright is to allow "which" to refer not only to nouns and verb phrases but to adjectives too. "They thought he was uneducated, which [ie "uneducated"] he was not." Or try this one: "You can order it black, which gets too hot in the sun, or red, which attracts unwelcome attention from traffic cops, or white, if you like white." Each of the three "which"s refers to a preceding adjective. Is the sentence wrong? I wouldn't have said so.
The 'gets' and 'attracts' look like they respect singular nouns. If they are to be linked to the adjectives it is via some phantom leaps to reach 'black' from phantom 'black paint,' 'red' from phantom 'red paint.' Not to mention 'black' etc. look more like adverbs than adjectives. Barring some strenuous acrobatic rationales sorry the sentence is wrong except as smooth sales spiel.
Wrong too is 'which' standing in for 'uneducated' because, a well-worn pronoun morphing into 'proadjective,' where is the underlying principle whether from school of thoughts or literary tradition?
Ok, you're saying that the relative pronoun "which", and for that matter relative pronouns in general, must refer to nouns, never adjectives. I don't recall ever being taught that, and I'm used to using it with adjectives frequently. Have you an authority you can cite on this?
(Is "relative pronoun" the right term?)
Martha Barnette
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