TinyProf's Grammar Breakdown 🎓

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1. What We're Solving

We need to figure out what grammatical role 'police say' plays in "This is the car that police say John stole" — is it an adverbial phrase like "according to police", or is something else entirely going on? We also need to untangle what the object of the relative clause actually is.

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2. The Approach

The best strategy is to strip the sentence back to its skeleton and rebuild it piece by piece. Complex sentences with embedded clauses follow logical rules. We'll ask three key diagnostic questions:

• What is the head noun being modified?
• What gap does the relative pronoun fill?
• What role does 'police say' actually play structurally?

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3. Step-by-Step Solution

🔹 Step 1: Find the Relative Clause

Start with the base sentence:

> "This is the car that John stole."

Here, "that John stole" is clearly a relative clause modifying car. The word that is a relative pronoun standing in for car — and crucially, car is the object of stole (John stole the car).

So the gap looks like this:

> John stole _____ ← that fills this slot

✅ The car is the object of stole.

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🔹 Step 2: Insert 'police say'

> "This is the car that police say John stole."

Ask yourself: does that still fill the object slot of stole?

> police say → John stole _____ ← that (= the car) still fills this slot

Yes! The gap hasn't moved. The car is still the object of stole, not of say.

'Police say' is being inserted into the middle of the relative clause — it's a parenthetical reporting clause or matrix clause interpolation. Think of it like this:

> "the car that — [police say] — John stole ___"

It interrupts the clause to tell us whose claim this is, but it doesn't change the structure underneath.

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🔹 Step 3: Compare With 'According to Police'

> "This is the car that, according to police, John stole."

"According to police" is a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial — it modifies the whole clause by indicating the source of information.

Here's the crucial comparison:

| Feature | police say | according to police | |---|---|---| | Word class | Clause (S + V) | Prepositional phrase | | Grammatical role | Parenthetical reporting clause | Adverbial phrase | | Can be removed? | ✅ Yes, cleanly | ✅ Yes, cleanly | | Changes object of stole? | ❌ No | ❌ No |

They behave similarly in that both can be removed without breaking the sentence, and both attribute a claim to police. But structurally they are different things — according to police is genuinely adverbial, while police say is a full clause acting as a parenthetical.

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🔹 Step 4: Address the Object Question

The object of stole is the car (represented by that). John is the subject of stole, not the object. John is never the object in either sentence — John is always the one doing the stealing! 🚗

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4. The Answer

• 'Police say' is NOT an adverbial phrase — it is a parenthetical reporting clause embedded inside the relative clause. It works similarly in meaning to "according to police" but is structurally a full clause, not a phrase.
• In both sentences, the object of stole is the car (= that), and John remains the subject of stole.
• The relative clause in both examples is modifying car by filling the object gap after stole.

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5. Memory Tip 💡

Try the "remove and test" trick:

> Remove the suspicious element → Does the sentence still make grammatical sense with the same meaning?

> ✅ "This is the car that John stole" — works perfectly!

If removal works cleanly and the gap stays in the same place, the inserted element is parenthetical — it's commenting on the clause, not restructuring it. It's like a grammatical footnote dropped into the middle of a sentence! 📝