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I’d like to know this “that” clause’s function.
As the days passed, the nation grew increasingly skeptical that any of the minors had survived- let alone all of them.
I can assume it means the nation grew skeptical about the possibility that the minors had survived. But I’m not sure what the “that clause”’s function is here.
Could you please give me some examples of that clauses as it is used in the above sentence?
Thank you.
This is a very common structure:
In US English, "that" is frequently omitted. In British English, "that" is much more common.
To British ears, it can sound ambiguous, and we might well say one of the following two:
You pretty much answered your own question when you said you assumed it means the nation grew sceptical about the possibility that the minors had survived.
It could be written:
...the nation grew increasingly sceptical of the fact that any of the minors had survived.
With these words added you can see the function of "that" more clearly. It is the fact that minors survived about which the writer is sceptical.
As the days passed, the nation grew increasingly sceptical [that any of the minors had survived] - let alone all of them.
Syntactically, the bracketed content clause (your that clause) functions as complement of the adjective "sceptical".
Semantically, "sceptical" has two arguments, expressing the nation's state of mind relative to the proposition that any of the minors had survived.
