Learn English – Can anyone give me examples of the relative-determinative ‘which’

adjectivesgrammaticalityusageword-usage

I recently posted a question on a Spanish language forum asking what the equivalent in Spanish would be for the use of which in a phrase such as

he refused, which decision proved disastrous

(which comes from the Oxford English/Spanish dictionary)

Someone on the forum is saying that this use of which is incorrect English, and that this fragment is in some way artificial, and would never occur in a correct English sentence.

I can easily think of sentences such as

The king refused his support for this endeavour, which decision left the duke without aid.

It's a formal, perhaps unusual, use, but perfectly good English.

Can anyone point me to examples online which would back this argument? I can't find any except in the Free Dictionary (https://www.thefreedictionary.com/which), definition 10, which is not quite the same thing. Also, perhaps, a pointer to the grammatical rule which defines this usage of which this is an example.

Edit: someone in the Spanish language forum pointed out this entry — https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=606 — which points out that this is a 'relative-determinative' usage. Any other links would be welcomed!

Thanks very much!

Edit: This was the entry from which I drew my example. I don't know whether it's correct or not, or whether it was the intention of Oxford to present it as a fragment or as a whole sentence, but it does exist. From the Oxford Spanish/English dictionary that comes bundled with the Mac OS. Entry for adjective, 2a enter image description here

Best Answer

Well, if you're just looking for usage examples, it's easy enough to do a Google search for the phrase "which decision proved," which method will give you quite a few examples. (They will include many quotations of a passage from Little Women involving a "second tumble down the beanstalk.") Of course, you can also substitute different nouns and verbs for "decision" and "prove," which tactic will give you all sorts of additional evidence to cite.

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