According to the CaGEL, the adjective own is unique amongst adjective because it only occurs with a genitive subject-determiner.
A genitive subject-determiner is either:
- a possessive pronoun such as my, your her and so forth: my own orangutan
- a genitively inflected Noun Phrase such as John 's or Mary 's: Mary's axe
There are a very few exception to this rule, but they all occur in fixed phrases such as an own goal.
In short we cannot use the adjective own without a preceding noun.
[CaGEL is The Cambridge grammar of the English language Huddleston and Pullum, 2002]
Shoe has already answered. Here is some additional information that may or may not clarify things further.
The first important thing to understand is that the relative pronoun is part of the relative clause, not of the main clause. Recently, even some native English speakers seem to be getting confused about this, as some weird new practices around who/whom show.
Let's look at some examples around the main clause "The man is here." I will put the relative clauses in bold face.
- The man who wrote the message is here.
- The man whom I wrote the message is here. [questionable example; see below]
- The man to whom I wrote the message is here.
- The man whom I wrote the message to is here.
We can see that in all examples the relative clause immediately follows the part of speech (here the noun man) which it defines or explains; the remainder of the main clause follows after the end of the relative clause. This is not absolutely necessary, but it's the normal order. (One could also say "The man is here who wrote the message", but that's unusual.)
Next we see that in all examples the relative pronoun (in this case who[m]) begins the relative clause, possibly together with a preposition. This can be explained as one of the few remnants that English has from the original proto-Germanic word order: Word order was generally very free, and the sentence started with the semantically most important part of speech. In a relative clause that's the relative pronoun -- where applicable with its preposition. (It's a general phenomenon in Germanic languages that the word order in subordinate clauses is more conservative than that in declarative main clauses.) As a special feature of English, the preposition can optionally be separated and 'stranded' at the end of the sentence (or here: of the relative clause) as in the last example.
If we replace who/whom by he/him and write all the relative clauses as if they were main clauses, we get declarative main clauses with an unusual (almost obsolete) word order that puts enormous stress on [to] him. The only exception is the first example, where the word order happens to be the normal one because it's the subject that needs stressing.
- He wrote the message.
- Him I wrote the message.
- To him I wrote the message.
- Him I wrote the message to.
Preposition stranding is a normal but optional and somewhat controversial feature of English. (Controversial among native speakers, that is. Non-native speakers get drills in preposition stranding so they can apply it properly.) I can see two problems with it. 1. It defers the information about the precise role of the relative pronoun in the relative clause to the very end of the relative clause. 2. There are transitions between prepositions and case markings. In fact, English to and of, just like French de and à, have developed to a stage where they can be considered as case markers. (Most case markers in European languages were once postpositions and therefore turned into endings. But prefixes marking case aren't unheard-of, either.) Seen this way, preposition stranding (in case of to or of) separates a relative pronoun from its case marker. That's like separating the -m from whom and 'stranding' it at the end of the sentence.
Best Answer
This is an excellent question. The answer, interestingly, has nothing to do with Dublin. It has absolutely nothing to do with the verb live. It also has nothing to do particularly with the prepositions in or at either. It has everything to do with the noun place.
The noun place is not a normal noun. If you replace place with most other nouns in English, you'll find that it isn't in fact grammatical to drop the preposition at the end of the infinitive in sentences like these:
Compare those to:
Notice as well that if we want to add a Locative Complement or Locative Adjunct (read Adverbial) to a normal sentence, we normally need a preposition phrase:
We cannot drop the prepositions from these sentences:
But, especially when it occurs with the determiner some, noun phrases using the word place can most often occur on their own without any preceding preposition:
With relative clauses, we also see the noun place behaving in an exceptional way. Relative clauses have an antecedent, which is the phrase that is being modified by the relative clause, the thing that we are giving more information about. Some nouns, in particular, the word place can have relative clauses where the gap in the relative clause represents a locative phrase of the type that would normally be represented by a preposition phrase within the relative clause. This is not normally possible unless the relative clause uses the relative word where. However, when place - or a small number of similar words - is the antecedent noun, it is possible. Consider the following sentences which are grammatical when the antecedent is the word place, but not if it is another noun:
Compare those with the following:
And then consider these, which use the relative preposition where:
The Original Poster's questions
Normally when we drop the word in after the word live it is because of some occurrence of the word place. This word may occur as an antecedent,as a word that is being modified by some clause that live occurs in, or it may be part of a noun phrase functioning as a Locative Complement of the word live. In most circumstances, it is not because of any special relationship with the word live itself. Indeed, this will occur with many other verbs. Very often the results when we drop the preposition, are better than the results when we don't:
Personally, the first example above is more natural than the second. However, using sentences like this will often convey an informal style. When a more formal style is required, we may be better off substituting the word place for a different noun and using a regular preposition phrase as a complement.
Regarding the second question
If the relative words which or that are used in such relative clauses then they will be interpreted as representing noun phrases in the relative clauses themselves. They won't be interpreted as standing in for preposition phrases or locative phrases in general. For this reason we still require the preposition in to meet this requirement. As the Original Poster has shown, where does indeed represent a locative phrase within the clause itself and, for this reason, no preposition is required.
To finish:
So I've given a vague description of what can happen with the word place. Exactly why does it happen this way? I don't know anyone who knows. One theory that we could put forward is that place is becoming more and more preposition-like. It is taking on more and more prepositiony qualities. Perhaps one day it will actually split in two and may become a locative preposition in its own right. But - that's just an interesting theory. Nobody knows!