A Question On Relative Pronouns & Conjunctions


I came across this quote from the movie RocknRolla:



Oh, beauty is a beguiling call to death and I'm addicted to the sweet pitch of its siren. That that starts sweet ends bitter, and that which starts bitter ends sweet.



I understand the metaphor. But I'm confused with the sentence structure of



That that starts sweet ends bitter, and that which starts bitter ends sweet.



Are the first that and the that before 'which starts bitter ends sweet' conjunctions while the second that and which relative pronouns?



Answer



The two 'that's are simply demonstrative pronouns. Each conjunct of your sentence has the same basic structure as:



  • He who hesitates is lost.


In this sentence, the 'he' is a pronoun, and the 'who' is a relative pronoun. In your second conjunct:



  • That which starts bitter ends sweet.


'that' is a pronoun, and 'which' is a relative pronoun.


In the first conjunct:



  • That that starts sweet ends bitter.


the first 'that' is a pronoun. The second 'that' is traditionally called a relative pronoun, but many linguists (including myself) would say that it is simply the subordinating conjunction (or complementizer) 'that'.


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