Re: "Difficult" clauses

>> I think you missed my point. If a word is implied, then it's not there, even
>> if it could be there. Adding a word that will not be there isn't really
>> adding anything.
stevo<<

 I'm sort of walking into the middle of this thread, so apologies if I'm
misunderstanding something. In my linguistics class this semester, we talked
about deep structure in syntax. This is mainly important for understanding how
transformation rules work, but I think it's also relative here. In English,
it's possible for a speaker to omit the complementizer "that"; however, it is
still there in the deep structure of a sentence, because it is the head of the
complementizer phrase, and you can't have a phrase without a head. So yes, it
is still there, even if it's not part of the actual spoken sample (because
listeners still insert a "that" when interpreting the sentence).


The Aquamarine Demon

"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." - Bertrand Russell

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