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(1) How do you think I feel?

Semantically, (1) asks the listener's opinion about how the speaker feels. So it's syntactically natural that the verb think has as its complement a subordinate clause I feel ___, where the gap is linked to How, and therefore that do you think is the superordinate clause (or matrix clause).

Where does all this put How? Does it belong in the subordinate clause because it's linked to the gap in the clause? Or does it belong in the superordinate clause along with do you think? Or does it belong in another superordinate clause higher than do you think?

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  • Compare "What did you think he wanted?" or "What did he tell you he wanted?" Although I don't pretend to know all the terminology in every schema for English grammar.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Feb 20, 2023 at 14:54
  • Question Formation (which causes the fronting of how here) is a non-cyclic movement rule, and therefore can extract relative pronouns from deep within the sentence and move them over variable structures (but never islands) towards the sentence beginning.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Feb 20, 2023 at 16:47
  • @StuartF Both of your examples present exactly the same problem as (1) in that What is semantically linked to the subordinate clause he wanted but is fronted before the superordinate clause did you think and did he tell you, respectively. That is, I could have asked the same question using either of your examples instead of (1), or better yet also included your examples as well.
    – JK2
    Commented Feb 20, 2023 at 23:23
  • There is no clause and no constituent "do you think", and on that basis there is no superordinate or matrix clause "do you think" either. As you note, the subordinate clause here is a complement of the verb know and is thus an integral part of the actual matrix clause "do you think I feel" (or "How do you think I feel", depending on which team you support).
    – Araucaria - Him
    Commented Mar 18, 2023 at 19:44
  • Or, of course, "you think I feel".
    – Araucaria - Him
    Commented Mar 19, 2023 at 0:09

1 Answer 1

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I don’t think I speak the same grammar language as you, but . . .
(subordinate clauses are bolded below, with that-clause thats added for clarity):

You think that I feel sad.

Do you think that I feel sad?

You think that I feel [how].

[How] do you think that I feel ___?

Summary: How is part of the subordinate clause. If you swap in what for how and a noun for the adjective sad, it might be easier to see.

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  • That's what I thought, initially. I understand how how is part of the subordinate clause in You think that I feel [how] because it resides after the clause boundary right before that. What I don't understand is how How is still part of the subordinate clause even after it's fronted. I think you agree that do you think is higher than that I feel. Now, if How were to be at the same level as that I feel, I think it should be below do you think somehow, and therefore that there should be a clause boundary right after How. But I can't seem to argue that there is one.
    – JK2
    Commented Feb 20, 2023 at 4:43
  • This is the problem Ross worked on in his dissertation. Note, incidentally, that inclusion of the complementizer renders the sentence ungrammatical (*How do you think that I feel?) for many speakers. That's because a that-complement is an island for them, but not without the that.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Feb 20, 2023 at 16:49
  • @JohnLawler If he came up with an answer, could you tell me what that answer is?
    – JK2
    Commented Feb 20, 2023 at 23:02
  • @JK2 Probably not. His answer was that such long-distance rules have limits and can't cross certain structural boundaries, which he called "islands". But this was in a generative derivational theory, where one structure is related to another by generative rules, like these movement rules. If you don't want the rules, you don't get the solution.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Feb 21, 2023 at 1:41
  • @JohnLawler Re *How do you think that I feel?, is this also ungrammatical? How do you think that governments should address abortion, if at all? nytimes.com/2021/09/30/learning/…
    – JK2
    Commented Feb 21, 2023 at 6:26

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