PIED Pied-piping constructions
Definition
Relative clauses where the preposition precedes the relative pronoun.
Detection Rules
WH-word with a preposition as its case dependent — the UD signature of pied-piping. Distinguishes “about which” (case on wh) from “which ... about” (case on verb). Requires a parser producing Universal Dependencies case relations.
semgrex{word:/which|whom|whose/}=wh >case {pos:/IN/}=prep
Preposition + WH-word. Approximation — may match non-relative uses (e.g., “in which case” as conjunction).
cql[pos="IN"] [word="which|whom|whose"]
pybiber
pybiber matches any IN-tagged word followed by a WH-word (who, whom, whose, which) with a WH POS tag. Blob pattern: \S*_in who_w\S* etc.
cql[pos="IN"] [word="who|whom|whose|which" & pos="W.*"]
Normalization
Per finite_verbs
Examples
the ring about which he spoke
the land to which they journeyed
Non-examples
the ring which he spoke about
Stranded preposition — not pied-piping
in which case we should leave
Conjunctive phrase, not a relative clause
Sources
- biber_1988 — Biber, Douglas (1988) : Variation across Speech and Writing
- pybiber — Brown, David West & Reinhart, Alex (2026) : pybiber — Python package for linguistic feature extraction and Multi-Dimensional Analysis
- xiao_2009 — Xiao, Richard (2009) : Multidimensional analysis and the study of world Englishes
Notes
Not in MFTE. Second-highest loading on D3. Requires syntactic parsing. Associated with formal/archaic registers.