"That" as a Complementer and Relative Pronouns in Mandeville's Travels

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present a descriptive study of the complementizer «that» and the pronouns «which,» «who(so),» «whom» and «whose» .as used in the relative clauses of Mandeville's Travels, one of the best-known books of the Middle Ages. The scope of the study is both synchronic and diachronic: on the one hand, the features differentiating the syntax of «that» from that of «which» are analyzed within the limits of the aforementioned work, and on the other hand, the use of both «that» and the relative pronouns in that stage of the English language is compared to their behaviour in contemporary English. The first part will lead us to the conclusion that the differences existing between «that» and «which» are those existing between a complementizer and a pronoun, whereas the main conclusion we can extract from the second part is that the use of «that» in the Middle English period is almost identical to its use in contemporary English, which again differentiates the complementizer from relative pronouns.