Practical Grammar 8b

Subject Clauses

That- and whether-clauses can also act as subjects:

1. That Lilly disappeared sucks
2. Whether Lilly disappeared is unknown

There is an important difference to the case when clauses appear in object functions: in subject function, the complementizer is always obligatory, as the following sentences show:

3. *Lilly disappeared sucks
4. *Lilly disappeared is unknown

And, of course, the complementizers are still bound to their clause types:

5. *Whether Lilly disappeared sucks
6. *That Lilly disappeared is unknown

Exercise 8b.1

• Go to https://xlfg.labri.fr/.
• Open your latest grammar or start with a copy of Grammar5-Ex8.1-solution.
• Add the sentences above to your test items.
• Change the grammar so that it makes the correct predictions for all test items.

Your grammar should yield the following Argument Structure for sentence (1):

Your grammar should yield the following Argument Structure for sentence (2):

Notes:

a. treat is as a verb which combines with a COMP and an OBJ.
b. treat unknown as an adjective.

Collecting everything we have done so far in one grammar

Exercise 8.b2

• Go to https://xlfg.labri.fr/.
• Open the grammar Practical Grammar 7. Except for test sentences, it is empty.
• Open xlfg again in a second browser tab by clicking on https://xlfg.labri.fr/.
• Open your previous grammars in the second tab window and copy information from those grammars into Practical Grammar 7 in the first browser tab until the grammar returns the expected result for all test sentences.

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