Joe:
>Second, my students are all raised basically on Quirk et al. and
>according to Quirk that-clauses are objects:
>
>(1) I believe that Bill is still president.
>(2) I believe it.
## That's what I teach my students too, and I'm inclined to think it may be
correct. However I think And has persuaded me that complement types are
best defined by a number of intersecting categories, so it may be that
they're not only objects (like "it") but something else as well. As Chet
points out, that-clauses and ordinary NPs aren't always freely
interchangeable: some verbs allow either, and some allow one but not the
other. I think it's pretty clear that a that-clause isn't an NP (i.e.
"that" isn't a noun); e.g. they can't be used as the complement of most
prepositions.
Richard (= Dick) Hudson
Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London,
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT.
+44(0)20 7419 3152; fax +44(0)20 7383 4108;
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/home.htm
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