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I'm studying "that clause" but I'm confused

"that a bus may have a flat tire confuses you when you decide which vehicle you get on"

this sentence is grammatically correct ? if not, why?

thanks

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  • Does this answer your question? Changing the order of "that" clause though I'd prefer 'That a bus may get a flat tire is a factor to bear in mind when you are deciding which form of transport to use' if you insist on starting a sentence with a that-clause (which sounds ultra-formal / rarefied). May 12, 2020 at 13:32
  • Nothing wrong with it.
    – Hot Licks
    May 12, 2020 at 13:34
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    The sentence is syntactically sound. However, what it describes doesn't make much sense. (If making a choice between two or more vehicles, seeing one with a flat tire would help me make my decision more easily—it wouldn't be confusing.) May 12, 2020 at 15:05

1 Answer 1

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What that sentence used, and what you are looking for is called -

That clause using extrapositioning.

Extraposition and End Weight

  • "In the following example, the subject (in bold) has been extraposed: It is likely that you will also become interested in filmmaking. The subject of the sentence is the that-clause, but placing this element first (in order to maintain the canonical SVC [Subject-Verb-Complement] order of clause elements in a declarative) results in a sentence which is quite difficult to process: That you will also become interested in film making is likely. Therefore, the lengthy clausal subject is placed after the complement (likely) and the empty subject position is filled with dummy it."

and as everyone had already stated its grammatically sound, but contextually weird.

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