Subject clauses

A clause which performs within a complex sentence the same function that the subject performs within a simple sentence. Clauses of this kind are introduced either by a relative or interrogative pronoun or adverb, or by the conjunction that. We give some examples of each variety. What had happened was that I had spent too much time in the French Quarter, mostly in jazz bars along Bourbon Street, but I planned to make up for it by getting my order book filled in Baton Rouge and Shreveport and thereby make a good showing at the sales conference in Dallas. What she considered his monkey's, Simon's, value, for instance, was not lost upon her. In the following sentence there is one subject clause and two predicative clauses to it: What they learn from me is that they're never going to have it so good again; that the great ones, the ones they read, saw it all as pretty black.

The reason for calling these clauses subject clauses would seem to be clear: if the clause is dropped, the subject is missing.

Things are somewhat more difficult and controversial in sentences like the following: It had seemed certain that their meeting was fortunate. Here the main clause has the pronoun it (in its impersonal use) occupying the position assigned to the subject of the sentence, and after the main clause comes a subordinate clause whose syntactical function we are to consider now. Two views appear to be possible here. One of them is that the pronoun it at the beginning of the main clause is only a "formal subject", or, as it is sometimes termed, a "sham subject", whereas the subordinate clause coming after the main one is the real subject. The other view is, that the position of the subject is occupied by the pronoun it, and, whether "formal" or not, it is the subject of the sentence, so that no room is left for any other subject.. If this view is accepted, the clause will have to be some other kind of clause, not a subject clause. The best way of treating it in that case would be to take it as a kind of appositional (приложение) clause referring to the subject of the main clause, namely the pronoun it.

PREDICATIVE CLAUSES

By predicative clauses we mean the clause ajoining a link-verb and performing the part of the predicate: This was exactly what she had expected him to say and for the first time she did not go closer and squeeze his hand intimately. "The only comforting feature of the whole business," he said, "is that we didn't pay for our dinner."

We must also consider under the heading of predicative clauses the following type: "It's because he's weak that he needs me," she added. Here the subordinate clause in question is included within the construction it is... that and thus singled out as the rheme of the complex sentence. This clause would occupy a different position in the sentence if it were not singled out; for instance, the sentence just mentioned would run like this: He needs me because he's weak and the clause would be a clause of cause. As the sentence stands, however, the clause is treated as a predicative one.

Sometimes we can even find two or three subordinate clauses singled out by being included into the frame it is... that. Here is an example which may be called extreme: It was whether one loved at all, and how much that love cost, and what was its reception then, that mattered. It may be interesting to note that it would probably have been impossible to have these three clauses as subject clauses, with the predicate mattered, and without the it is... that construction. That the three clauses are subordinate, is shown by several facts: (1) the conjunction whether, which is a sure sign of a subordinate clause, (2) the form of the predicate verb in the second subordinate clause: cost, not did cost, as it would have been in an independent clause (how much did this love cost?); as to the third subordinate clause, its subordinate status is shown by its being co-ordinated with the other two subordinate clauses by means of the conjunction and.

Not infrequently there is both a subject clause and a predicative clause in a complex sentence. The only element outside these clauses is then the link verb. What I am positive about is that he never expected a wife who would please the family.

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