Using prepositions in relative clauses?


Example:

Let's say I want to reference " _the bridge that I ran underneath_ ".

I would presume that the sentence would be:

> 下に走った橋

I feel like there's a lot of ambiguity here, but I guess that's sometimes the
nature of Japanese, and immediate understanding of what part of the relative
clause the noun refers to would come with fluency.

Anyway, is this right? What general rules are there for nouns referring to
different parts of the relative clause?




> Anyway, is this right?

Unfortunately, no. The particle you need is **を** , not に. 下に would mean
_downwards_.

  * [Making sense of transitive usage of 行く and 来る - 「を行く」 and 「を来る」](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/3243/5010)
  * [この道をまっすぐ行ってください。 Why を and not で?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/6869/5010)

下を走った橋 should be understandable if there's enough context, but if you worry
about ambiguity, it may be better to explicitly add the subject of 走る and say
私が下を走った橋. Although we don't usually say 橋が走る, we do commonly say 道路/川が走る "the
street/river runs (e.g., across the town)", and thus 下を走った橋 without any other
modifier might also be taken as "a bridge that crosses some low place" by some
people.

This ambiguity is an innate restriction of Japanese relative clause, and there
is not simple rule to determine the interpretation in one way. See also: [How
is the subject of this subclause made
clear?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/54666/5010)

