Timeline for Why is this that-clause unnatural as the subject in this sentence?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
17 events
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| May 19, 2023 at 19:55 | comment | added | alphabet | I think it may partly just be that having a long, non-extraposed *that-*clause at the start of a sentence is awkward and unexpected, particularly when that clause has any level of internal syntactic complexity. | |
| May 19, 2023 at 19:48 | comment | added | alphabet | I mostly agree with @TinfoilHat on this one. "That the United States is stopping its support for the Kurdish rebels has caused the fragmentation of the opposition" on its own seems no better to me. | |
| May 19, 2023 at 14:36 | comment | added | Tinfoil Hat | @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. — That’s a good fix. But the whole thing still seems off. It’s not [the fact] that the US stopped its support that caused anything; it’s the US’s stopping support that caused chaos. Still, I can’t say how that is different than [The fact] that he suggested pie caused rage. | |
| May 19, 2023 at 13:42 | comment | added | Araucaria - Him | @TinfoilHat et al. I think the biggest problem all round is the awkward coordination functioning as the DO of caused. The noun fragmentation represents a physical event whereas an increased vulnerability ... is an abstract relationship. It's a bit like saying This caused a riot and embarrassment. The following seems to work much better: "That the United States is stopping its support for the Kurdish rebels has caused the fragmentation of the opposition and and made them increasingly vulnerable to Hussein's renewed attacks." Both clauses there have the same content clause as subject. | |
| May 18, 2023 at 19:25 | comment | added | alphabet | @TinfoilHat "[The fact] that he is suggesting pie is causing rage" sounds better to me, albeit semantically off. | |
| May 18, 2023 at 19:25 | comment | added | MarcInManhattan | @TinfoilHat Except for sounding somewhat uncommon (I think we'd more often use a different construction), your version with the simple past tense (". . . stopped . . . caused . . .") seems OK to me. I suppose that opinions will differ. | |
| May 18, 2023 at 19:18 | comment | added | MarcInManhattan | @TinfoilHat Yes, I wrote that the simple present was "certainly possible" because I don't see any error with that sentence due to grammar. If it were an ongoing, habitual action, then I think that simple present would be appropriate. For example: "That the United States stops its support for the Kurdish rebels every five years always causes the fragmentation . . ." That doesn't seem to make much sense logically, though. | |
| May 18, 2023 at 18:49 | comment | added | Tinfoil Hat | @alphabet — I don’t think it’s the tense or aspect; don’t all these work? [The fact] that he suggested pie caused rage. [The fact] that he suggests pie causes rage. [The fact] that he is suggesting pie has caused rage. | |
| May 18, 2023 at 17:49 | comment | added | alphabet | @TinfoilHat I have a theory: the historical present affects both time (moving the past to the present) and aspect (allowing the simple present instead of the present progressive). I suspect that the change in time also affects subordinate clauses, but that the change in aspect doesn't. That would explain why the subordinate clause can be in the present progressive but cannot be in the simple present. | |
| May 18, 2023 at 17:49 | comment | added | alphabet | @TinfoilHat I have a theory: the historical present affects both time (moving the past to the present) and aspect (allowing the simple present instead of the present progressive). I suspect that the change in time also affects subordinate clauses, but that the change in aspect doesn't. That would explain why the subordinate clause can be in the present progressive but cannot be in the simple present. | |
| May 18, 2023 at 16:00 | comment | added | Tinfoil Hat | But now I see that OP’s (1) uses the narrative present, which is fine. To put it in the past: After the Algiers Agreement was reached, the US stopped its support for the rebels, which caused fragmentation. That’s fine. Here’s (2) in the past (not changing the meaning like your verbs do): That the US stopped its support for the rebels caused fragmentation. If you buy that, then the narrative present is correct too: That the US stops its support for the rebels causes fragmentation. But as @alphabet said, these are all “quite infelicitous” for some reason. | |
| May 18, 2023 at 15:17 | comment | added | Tinfoil Hat | Well, no, I guess not. | |
| May 18, 2023 at 4:48 | comment | added | MarcInManhattan | @TinfoilHat Are you suggesting that it-extraposition must be possible in order for a sentence beginning with a that-clause to be valid? I would not agree with that. | |
| May 18, 2023 at 4:26 | comment | added | MarcInManhattan | @alphabet No, I just chose some verb forms that seemed to make sense. Others could work, too. | |
| May 18, 2023 at 2:17 | comment | added | Tinfoil Hat | If the sentence is now fine, then it-extraposition would work, but it doesn’t: * It has caused the fragmentation of the opposition ... that the United States is stopping its support for the Kurdish rebels. | |
| May 18, 2023 at 2:02 | comment | added | alphabet | Is there a reason for using "has caused" instead of "is causing"? Or "is stopping" instead of "has stopped"? | |
| May 17, 2023 at 23:59 | history | answered | MarcInManhattan | CC BY-SA 4.0 |