Use of singular noun in adverbial clause for plural antecedent?

Um, I'm not confident with the names, maybe using a word antecedent wrong:
"Use of singular noun in adverbial clause for plural antecedent?"

So please correct me if the title does not make sense at all.


A few light-less places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porches.

An old grammar books in the back of my head are woofing that there is something sounding unfamiliar with the sentence because:
Places where the occupants of those places(a dwelling) sat talking low...

those places(those dwelling places) = a dwelling?

I'm guessing that "a dwelling" is used in the above sentence because it is meant to be something like a common noun rather than a concrete noun to signify "one single instance of a dwelling place".
And probably the author did not use zero article because he neither thought the dwellings are uniform enough to stripped off of individuality nor discrete enough from the other dwelling places in general.

English User Guides | David Appleyard
English User Guides | David Appleyard

Also as to why it is not "those dwellings" rather than "a dwelling", I am guessing, the author maybe barely wanted to add that the "places" are of a type that is called a dwelling and did not want to put much emphasis on the fact that the places are dwellings.

But I still do not know how I should be writing myself when I refer back to plural antecedent in adverbial clause because something is screaming in my head that "do not mess with plurality of words!!!".
I'm almost like a paranoid about this...

Thank you for reading and if anyone could help our of this, I will really appreciate.

The sentence as it is doesn't make sense.
There must have been more to it?
Something prior to "A few..."
Something like 'He could see..." or "There were.." or something.

At any rate, 'a dwelling' to me clearly indicates one specific place, even if 'the' is not used.
It's clarified by 'the occupants', where (I think) we, the readers, infer that the dwelling is theirs or they are temporarily associated with it.
It's like a noun phrase of sorts. "The occupants of a dwelling". (a group of people)

Alternatively (again, original context for the sentence in question is lacking), the dwelling may not be theirs but communal or maybe they're squatting there I don't know. But at any rate, it's the one where 'they' are at the moment, and probably one of many.

I think it could be replaced thusly:

"...where the occupants of one of the dwellings sat..."

Also keep in mind not all published authors are necessarily perfect speakers of thier native tongue. That goes for editors and the such, although they technically should be. Also, if the book is old, some of the grammar may be strange. Old English for example sometimes uses 'what' for relative clauses.

"And so he gave him the jewels what he found on the island and ran off into the night"
or something like that... I dunno, just an example of things I've heard in movies/read in books. The point is, sometimes what doesn't make sense now used to make sense or wasn't a big deal back then.

I agree there's a little something off about that sentence though.

I think the more I read it, the more it seems that there are more dwellings in that area and that the people in that one dwelling may not necessarily be from that dwelling, but just happen to be there.

Sorry if that's not the answer you wanted, but there are probably only a handful of English teachers at least (certainly not regular every-day people) who may understand the terminology you're using. Most native speakers do not need to dissect their own language and so therefore they will not answer you in the analytical terms you're phrasing the question with.

bakaKanadajin said:

The sentence as it is doesn't make sense.
There must have been more to it?
Something prior to "A few..."
Something like 'He could see..." or "There were.." or something.

At any rate, 'a dwelling' to me clearly indicates one specific place, even if 'the' is not used.
It's clarified by 'the occupants', where (I think) we, the readers, infer that the dwelling is theirs or they are temporarily associated with it.
It's like a noun phrase of sorts. "The occupants of a dwelling". (a group of people)

Alternatively (again, original context for the sentence in question is lacking), the dwelling may not be theirs but communal or maybe they're squatting there I don't know. But at any rate, it's the one where 'they' are at the moment, and probably one of many.

I think it could be replaced thusly:

"...where the occupants of one of the dwellings sat..."

Also keep in mind not all published authors are necessarily perfect speakers of thier native tongue. That goes for editors and the such, although they technically should be. Also, if the book is old, some of the grammar may be strange. Old English for example sometimes uses 'what' for relative clauses.

"And so he gave him the jewels what he found on the island and ran off into the night"
or something like that... I dunno, just an example of things I've heard in movies/read in books. The point is, sometimes what doesn't make sense now used to make sense or wasn't a big deal back then.

I agree there's a little something off about that sentence though.

I think the more I read it, the more it seems that there are more dwellings in that area and that the people in that one dwelling may not necessarily be from that dwelling, but just happen to be there.

Sorry if that's not the answer you wanted, but there are probably only a handful of English teachers at least (certainly not regular every-day people) who may understand the terminology you're using. Most native speakers do not need to dissect their own language and so therefore they will not answer you in the analytical terms you're phrasing the question with.

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Thank you very much for your post, bakaKanadajin.

And sorry about forgetting to post the whole sentence.
It is from Dandelion wine by Ray Bradbury.

"Off somewhere a car floated by, flashing its lights in the distance. There was such a complete lack of life, light, and activity. here and there, back off from where they were walking , faint squares of light glowed where people were still up. But most of the houses, darkened, were sleeping already and there were a few light-less places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porches. You heard a porch swing squeaking as you walked by.


>At any rate, 'a dwelling' to me clearly indicates one specific place, even if 'the' is not >used.
>at any rate, it's the one where 'they' are at the moment, and probably one of many.

Thank you, this alone helps a great deal. How native speak reads it on reflex helps a lot.

But the more I think about it, the more chaotic ideas I end up with...

What makes the matter even worse for me is that "talking on their porches" seem to indicate that "the occupants" actually are clusters of people at different houses given there is only one porch a house.

I am beginning to get an urge to rewrite the sentence:
"there were places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking on their porches."
into
"there were places at each of those the occupants of a dwelling sat talking on their porch."

But oh well, I'm simply not allowed to make such a drastic change to English Language

And I know I will be rather happy and impressed by the beauty of the English language once I can understand this sentence

To me;
1) the expression somehow sounds old-fashioned
2) "occupants of a dwelling" sounds like a sort of a set phrase, which simply means "residents". In this case dwellings sounds strange (to me) as people cannot live in more than two places at a time.

But this is just my feeling without any grounds...

"But most of the houses, darkened, were sleeping already and there were a few light-less places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porches."

I think the author wanted to make a general statement about the "light-less places" and its occupants. He is saying, in those light-less places, the occupants of a dwelling would sit and talk on their respective porches. At first glance it sounds perfectly fine to me as a native speaker, but after re-reading it again I can see where you are confused since "light-less places" and "dwelling" are the same subject but one is plural and the other is not. It is a bit old fashioned but it is probably just the author's writing style. In spoken English I think you would never hear "light-less places." The author uses it here to avoid re-using the same adjective to keep the sentence interesting.

GreenCat said:

But the more I think about it, the more chaotic ideas I end up with...

What makes the matter even worse for me is that "talking on their porches" seem to indicate that "the occupants" actually are clusters of people at different houses given there is only one porch a house.

I am beginning to get an urge to rewrite the sentence:
"there were places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking on their porches."
into
"there were places at each of those the occupants of a dwelling sat talking on their porch."

And I know I will be rather happy and impressed by the beauty of the English language once I can understand this sentence

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He's evoking a sense of mystery which keeps the prose absolutely singing, a dreamlike mood of shadowy, drifting, subterranean otherworldiness where "residency" is transient and the identities of the "residents" even more so.


Learn to love it now. Because Bradbury is one of the most gifted writers of the English language still working with a distinguishing characteristic predicated on an imagistic, impressionistic, poetic (as opposed to reason or fact based) style. Maybe you're dumbing him down for the plot or character driven audience ?? ;-)

To the OP, for future reference:
It is not really that necessary to get into the detailed rules of English grammar (right off the bat, at least) when asking about sentences that seem confusing, especially when they're from literary works that take great liberties with the language.

The reason your thread title makes no sense is not because of incorrect usage of the terms, but the way you ask your question using those terms. So you can drop the intellectual posturing and just reproduce the sentence that is causing you trouble. All this talk of antecedents and adjectival singular nouns just make our eyes glaze over, when you're really not asking that complicated a question.

undrentide said:

To me;
1) the expression somehow sounds old-fashioned
2) "occupants of a dwelling" sounds like a sort of a set phrase, which simply means "residents". In this case dwellings sounds strange (to me) as people cannot live in more than two places at a time.
But this is just my feeling without any grounds...

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> people cannot live in more than two places at a time.
That is a good ground I think.
Occupants are the people who temporarily found at a location and if they can be at more than a location simultaneously...they got to be the likes of a Ninja!!!

Half-n-Half said:

I think the author wanted to make a general statement about the "light-less places" and its occupants.

It is a bit old fashioned but it is probably just the author's writing style.

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I see maybe people are not very fussy about grammatical number that much.

Elizabeth said:

poetic (as opposed to reason or fact based) style.
cool: Maybe you're dumbing him down for the plot or character driven audience ??;-)

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>poetic (as opposed to reason or fact based) style.
Um, I cannot quite agree with you, poets may use their own unique way of expressing things but they are generally very logical, else no one understands them ever. It is possible that he is too good for me though

>cool: Maybe you're dumbing him down for the plot or character driven audience ??;-)
Very much so just it is only for myself though

nice gaijin said:

you can drop the intellectual posturing and just reproduce the sentence that is causing you trouble. All this talk of antecedents and adjectival singular nouns just make our eyes glaze over, when you're really not asking that complicated a question.

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Thank you that is a good advice and a good news.
I was beginning to feel dizzy seeing words like anaphora, cataphora, discourse referent and singular atomic plurality, I'm certainly happy to leave off reading those.

Thank you very much people for posting
Now hopefully I can start to deduce something









Everyone seems to say that the authors is talking about the people in the houses in general.
"of a dwelling" is the only odd one in the sentence.
I guess it is reasonable to regard "a dwelling" as something like a generic expression like "in bed" rather than indicative.
Gnomic aspect - Wikipedia

And grammatical numbers do not have to correspond necessarily:
The count distinctions typically, but not always, correspond to the actual count of the referents of the marked noun or pronoun.
Grammatical number - Wikipedia

As to the reason they do not have to, it is maybe something to do with English language's dependence on semantics:
A donkey pronoun is a pronoun that is bound in semantics but not syntax.
The difficulty is with understanding how English speakers parse the scope of quantification in such sentences.[3] Additionally, the indefinite article 'a' is normally understood as an existential quantifier, but the most natural reading of the donkey sentence requires it to be understood as a nested universal quantifier.
Donkey sentence - Wikipedia

This article is about something rather different but probably there is some common mindset behind:
"It seems reasonable to assume then, that singular pronouns may denote bunches. If it were the case that plural individual noun phrases were sometimes bunch denoting, one might expect, counter-factually, that they would allow for singular pronominal anaphora"
page 176:
Pluralities

So, places with certain common characteristics can be a bunches and they can be collectively denoted by a singular noun "a dwelling" sometimes. Rather violent and I do not like the conclusion and weak arguement myself but...will do for now

GreenCat said:

A few light-less places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porches.

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Is it not possible that it is a single dwelling with multiple front porches?

Mikawa Ossan said:

Is it not possible that it is a single dwelling with multiple front porches?

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I guess, what I posted sound very fishy...well ya, I think it sounds fishy myself

Um, not like I can deny the possibility besides I cannot prove if "a dwelling" really refers to "places" and "places" pointing to houses.

"But most of the houses, darkened, were sleeping already and there were a few light-less places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porches.".

houses = lightless places = a dwelling?

GreenCat said:

"But most of the houses, darkened, were sleeping already and there were a few light-less places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porches.".

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Aha! This makes sense to me now! Whether I can explain it is another question, though.

"The occupants of a dwelling" refer to the people who live in a single house.
The referent of "their" in 'their front porches' is the aggregate of all the occupants in all the dwellings who are outside.

In other words, in the first part, each house is treated separately, but in the second part they are all grouped together.

Does that help or is it even more confusing?

GreenCat said:

I guess, what I posted sound very fishy...well ya, I think it sounds fishy myself
Um, not like I can deny the possibility besides I cannot prove if "a dwelling" really refers to "places" and "places" pointing to houses.
"But most of the houses, darkened, were sleeping already and there were a few light-less places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porches.".
houses = lightless places = a dwelling?

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Without question it's a richly poetic styled semi-autobiographical chronicle of a midwestern boy's summer in the 1920's. Why don't you research multiple family dwellings that would have been conceivable of that era ?

I don't think "their" porches refers to each resident in the plural living together under one dwelling...

Mikawa Ossan said:

Aha! This makes sense to me now! Whether I can explain it is another question, though.
"The occupants of a dwelling" refer to the people who live in a single house.
The referent of "their" in 'their front porches' is the aggregate of all the occupants in all the dwellings who are outside.
In other words, in the first part, each house is treated separately, but in the second part they are all grouped together.
Does that help or is it even more confusing?

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Thank you, Mikawa Ossan.

"In other words, in the first part, each house is treated separately, but in the second part they are all grouped together."

Ya, sounds more plausible and natural.
Also easier as well because I just have to replace "where" with "at each of those places" or something alike. I need to collect more the examples before I start using this grammar though.

Elizabeth said:

Without question it's a richly poetic styled semi-autobiographical chronicle of a midwestern boy's summer in the 1920's. Why don't you research multiple family dwellings that would have been conceivable of that era ?

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Um, sorry I do not see what is you point? Could you please be kind enough to explain it?

GreenCat said:

Thank you, Mikawa Ossan.

"In other words, in the first part, each house is treated separately, but in the second part they are all grouped together."

Ya, sounds more plausible and natural.
Also easier as well because I just have to replace "where" with "at each of those places" or something alike. I need to collect more the examples before I start using this grammar though.


Um, sorry I do not see what is you point? Could you please be kind enough to explain it?

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The image that came to mind originally and still seems most reasonable would consist of multiple porches mounted off some type of multi-family, multi-unit communally organized (connected or stand-alone structures) "dwelling"...although I have no idea what it looked like in specifics particular to that time and place. Disregarding Bradbury's heavy penchant for magical orchestrations, metaphor, imagination, semi-realism etc...

Elizabeth said:

The image that came to mind originally and still seems most reasonable would consist of multiple porches mounted off some type of multi-family, multi-unit communally organized (connected or stand-alone structures) "dwelling"...although I have no idea what it looked like in specifics particular to that time and place. Disregarding Bradbury's heavy penchant for magical orchestrations, metaphor, imagination, semi-realism etc...

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Oh I see it now.
Yes, there is that possibility and there was a mention of a building like that, a light house?
So it is quite possible I believe.

But through out the book, the boy talks about a town, streets and buildings, judging from the context maybe it is more natural to assume the houses to be separate buildings.
Of cause maybe I have read it wrong though.

Anyway, thank you so much Elizabeth for your opinion. For you to think of that possibility, I bet the sentence must sounds very invoking and open to many different ways of interpretations.

For me, it always is not what it means that is important but what sort of things a sentence could mean, so it is very nice of you to let me know that there are other ways to read the paragraph.

Thanks

GreenCat said:

Oh I see it now.
Yes, there is that possibility and there was a mention of a building like that, a light house?
So it is quite possible I believe.
But through out the book, the boy talks about a town, streets and buildings, judging from the context maybe it is more natural to assume the houses to be separate buildings.

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Oh, well. If he's marking it as the town proper, maybe a boarding type arrangement for railway workers or some such ? Honestly I have no idea. It's much easier to picture sprawling farmhouses with wrap around verandahs or barracks with makeshift porches etc situated in a rural setting.

their porches = 'the peoples' porches

not the dwellings' many porches

I think there's something to be said also for the fact that any language, including low contextual/high accuracy languages such as English and even German, are prone to misinterpretation. It's not that the grammar is pointing to something and we're missing it, it's that the grammar could be used to point to many things if taken in various contexts BUT we are meant to take it as whatever seems most probable.

To me it's clear that it's a sleepy, darkly-lit town or neighbourhood in the evening and that some people are sitting on the porches of their dwellings talking.

This line which wasn't included in the OP:
"You heard a porch swing squeaking as you walked by."

The tense here is interesting. In modern conversation you'd most likely say 'You could hear' and the swings would be pluralized.

But I 'get' this phrase, it's meant to communicate an experience you're supposed to have had already being told to you in the present. It's building the memory for you as you read. It's not really a prose most people would invoke in the every-day, but it serves a nice purpose here as Elizabeth has pointed out.

bakaKanadajin said:

This line which wasn't included in the OP:
"You heard a porch swing squeaking as you walked by."

The tense here is interesting. In modern conversation you'd most likely say 'You could hear' and the swings would be pluralized.

But I 'get' this phrase, it's meant to communicate an experience you're supposed to have had already being told to you in the present. It's building the memory for you as you read. It's not really a prose most people would invoke in the every-day, but it serves a nice purpose here as Elizabeth has pointed out.

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Thank you bakaKanadajin and Elizabeth too.

>communicate an experience you're supposed to have had already being told to you in >the present
I see, it does sound like somebody whispering to me trying to hypnotise and forge a memory of something that never really happened.

"low contextual/high accuracy languages such as English"
Um, Academic English does look like high accuracy language(stressful for users), while literary and conversational English appear relatively high contextual(freedom of imagination).
And this brings up the question I have been wondering so long.
Maybe It is this trench between the two aspects of the language that is pulling up the hurdle for me and for some children in English speaking countries?, I mean I have seen some young English speaking people who do not read much books but finding such Japanese speakers would be rather hard(while possible).
It is entirely from memory but I think at age of 9 or so, kids in Japan probably read more than 2 or 3 books monthly(If we include Manga, it is likely more than 1 book a day).
Or like dyslexia, is it to do with spelling system? What do you think?

But most of the houses, darkened, were sleeping already and there were a few light-less places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porches.

Places does not refer to dwelling. Places means various locations or areas in the city/suburb.

The sentence makes perfect sense in that regard.

As for dwelling being singular yet occupants being plural, Bradbury is just saying that there were several people occupying a single house (dwelling) and in more than one case, each dwelling's occupants were sitting in the dark outside the home.

If he had written "the occupants of dwellings", it could be taken to mean that people from different homes were outside talking to each other. Ambiguous.

Glenski said:

But most of the houses, darkened, were sleeping already and there were a few light-less places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porches.

Places does not refer to dwelling. Places means various locations or areas in the city/suburb.

The sentence makes perfect sense in that regard.

As for dwelling being singular yet occupants being plural, Bradbury is just saying that there were several people occupying a single house (dwelling) and in more than one case, each dwelling's occupants were sitting in the dark outside the home.

If he had written "the occupants of dwellings", it could be taken to mean that people from different homes were outside talking to each other. Ambiguous.

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Thank you Glenski for posting, it is good to read explanations from few different people.

Um, but please keep my limited understanding of English language in mind, as I had some difficulties understanding.

If he had written "the occupants of dwellings", it could be taken to mean that people from different homes were outside talking to each other. Ambiguous.

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Oh I see, so he had to write "the occupants of a dwelling" rather than "the occupants of dwellings".
Yes, I see that very clearly now, thank you.
Definitely a thing to note


I assume your point is that the clause after subordinate conjunction "where" is used to describe one of the places because the novel tells a story from boy's perspective of view with on-going manner and the boy cannot see all the places at once.

Thus, "there were places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porches."
Can be read as
"There were places where the occupants of (a place) one of the places sat talking low night talk on their front porches"

where "a place" does not refer to places but one of the places and at the same time, defining a type of those places and marking "the occupants" as one of many groups of "the occupants".

So, it is very hard to come up with a sentence like the above but maybe:
"there were 5 boxes in which 5 candies of a same type a(per) box were found and all the candies were nice"
Can be a close enough approximation in sentence structure?

I do not know if I read you right but if the word "a dwelling" was used in the fashion like the above, hmm, I would be rather impressed; elaborate and beautifully complex!!

GreenCat said:

Thank you Glenski for posting, it is good to read explanations from few different people.

Um, but please keep my limited understanding of English language in your mind, as I had some difficulties understanding.



Oh I see, so he had to write "the occupants of a dwelling" rather than "the occupants of dwellings".
Yes, I see that very clearly now, thank you.
Definitely a thing to note

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Yes, but in the case of referring to a single cluster of occupants at a particular dwelling in several places, he could have made it slightly less obscure and less interesting at the same time as "occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porch." (Porches = places, porch = individual dwelling)

"Occupants of dwellings sat talking low night on their front porch" is also a sentence clear in meaning which simply sounds unnecessarily pedantic and inelegant.

Elizabeth said:

Yes, but in the case of referring to a single cluster of occupants at a particular dwelling in several places, he could have made it slightly less obscure and less interesting at the same time as "occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porch." (Porches = places, porch = individual dwelling)

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Hmm, that means the sentence is also describing the gatherings of town folks that boy assumes (or author intend us to believe)to be exactly like the one he sees(described instance).

"Occupants of dwellings sat talking low night on their front porch" is also a sentence clear in meaning which simply sounds unnecessarily pedantic and inelegant.

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I see, I guess it is because in that case that the sentence is more like explanation rather than something that the boy is observing.



Thank you so much Elizabeth and all the other people for generously and kindly helping me.
Now I think I can finally picture what the paragraph has been screaming at me.

And the coherence or oneness of the entire paragraph is maddening, I am thunderstruck and well scorched now.

Whatever happens, I would stay happy at least for this week!!!

The sentence does not seem grammatically correct to me. But fiction writers sometimes break the rules, for their own artistic reasons.

RolandtheHeadless said:

The sentence does not seem grammatically correct to me. But fiction writers sometimes break the rules, for their own artistic reasons.

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Thank you RolandtheHeadless.

Ya, I have been wondering about that, I felt there is something rather off from standard writing practice. Something very experimental which I can be told off for using the same style, only a famous and great novelist would be praised for employing
If you feels the sentence is grammatically dubious too, then I can explain for all that seismic feeling of confusion and difficulties I experience
Thank you for telling me your opinion frankly
It is always hard to disagree with a relatively famous writer, but language changes and established writers are not always right or skilful. I read few relatively famous Japanese novelists writing lines that look rather silly, generally trying too hard to be authentic and majestic.

I personally liked how he wrote the line though, because it gave me all the fun guessing his intention, but I bet there are some people who do not like his way of writing too.

People seem to have a lot of interpretations of this sentence, but I think they inflated it a little. In most of Bradbury's work, the simplest answer usually makes the most sense.

"But most of the houses, darkened, were sleeping already and there were a few light-less places where the occupants of a dwelling sat talking low night talk on their front porches."


What he meant was that on the porches of the few houses with families that were still awake, those families (or parts of it) were outside talking. The "occupants of a dwelling" would be the people who live in that house, and they, like a few of their sleepless neighbors, are out on their dark porches, speaking quietly to each other.

To make it clearer, using "a dwelling" emphasizes the family unit. Saying "those dwellings" lumps everyone outside into one group. I haven't read that story in particular, but emphasizing the tiny pockets of people gives the image more of a paranoid feeling(for me). What are they talking about? Do their sleepless neighbors agree?