If a noun clause acts as the subject of a sentence, is it no longer a dependent clause?
For example:
- "What he did was outrageous."
I just saw this on a site so I wanted to see if it's true or not.
-
1Consider this example: After we had had lunch [subordinate clause], we went back to work [main clause]. That would still be the same if we change After to When, and I can't see the basic syntactic categories changing if we shift to When we finished lunch [it was starting to get late]. In short, I can't see a big difference between When he did [it] (which seems unquestionably to be a dependent clause) and What he did. But whether that's a useful categorisation is another question entirely.– FumbleFingersCommented Nov 13, 2020 at 15:35
-
Ah, I see. I was taken aback because up until recently, none of the sites I used mentioned that particular condition. It actually made sense too.– JoshuaCommented Nov 13, 2020 at 15:44
-
Well, if the categorisation matters to you (because you've got to know it to pass an exam, perhaps) then don't rely on anything I said. I don't really know or care what teachers of grammatical terminology would say about it (almost all of what I really think is contained in the final sentence above! :)– FumbleFingersCommented Nov 13, 2020 at 16:18
-
So far, I haven't seen other sites mention it so I might ignore it. My English teachers never mentioned it, so it might be like how some teachers subscribe to the alleged "don't end a sentence with a preposition" rule.– JoshuaCommented Nov 13, 2020 at 16:36
-
"What he did" is not a clause but a noun phrase in a fused relative construction. It means "that which he did" (or "the thing that he did")– BillJCommented Nov 13, 2020 at 19:58
Add a comment
|
1 Answer
[What he did] was outrageous.
"What he did" is not a noun clause (even if there were such a thing, which there isn't), but a noun phrase in a fused relative construction.
The pronoun "what" is simultaneously head of the whole noun phrase and object (in prenuclear position) in the relative clause.
It means "That which he did* (or the thing that he did") was outrageous".
EDIT: Below is a tree diagram of a similar example showing the structure of a fused relative construction with "what" in prenuclear position. As the diagram shows, "what" is co-referenced by the i subscript to the direct object in the nucleus clause.
-
I am not quite clear on "in prenuclear position". Can you talk a little more on that? Commented Nov 13, 2020 at 22:43
-
@EddieKal I've edited my answer by adding a diagram of a similar example. Hopefully, this will make things clearer.– BillJCommented Nov 14, 2020 at 7:56
-