This chapter discusses noun clauses, gerunds, and infinitives. It focuses on that clauses, noun clauses filling noun phrase slots, extraposing that clauses, wh- subordinates, and for/to. That can function as a subordinator linking two sentences together into a single sentence. Noun clauses differ from relative clauses in that a noun clause is the subject or object of the main clause, while a relative clause modifies a noun. Wh- words can also function as subordinators, linking two clauses together where the wh- word stands in for missing information.

1. NOUN CLAUSES,
GERUNDS, INFINITIVES
FROM CH. 8 OF DOING GRAMMAR, 5TH EDITION

2. THIS CHAPTER IS PACKEDWITH NEW INFO.WE’LL
FOCUS ON…
• That Clauses
• Noun Clauses filling NP Slots
• Extraposing “That Clauses”
• Wh- Subordinates
• For… to

3. THAT CLAUSES
Subordinators, Diagramming Noun Clauses,“That Clauses” at the Beginning of Sentences

4. THE FUNCTIONS OF THAT
So far in class we have seen “that” function in multiple capacities. Notably, as a
demonstrative adjective (ie.“that pen,” “that class,”), and more recently as a relative
pronoun (ie.“The subject that I most enjoy teaching”) where that is equal to “The subject.”
Now we’re going see that function as something called a subordinator.

5. WHAT IS A SUBORDINATOR?
Sometimes we have Noun Clauses within Noun Clauses.They aren’t really sentences, as
you’ll notice the more you diagram, but they function essentially like sentences within
sentences. Consider these examples from the textbook:
• Chinese cooks claim that snake meat keeps you warn in winter.
• The problem is that children watch far too muchTB.
• The Federal Aviation Administration conceded that the UFO sighting had occurred.

6. WHAT IS A SUBORDINATOR (CONT.)?
All those sentences seem to be built form at least two other sentences. Namely:
• Chinese cooks claim something. Snake meat keeps you warm in winter.
• The problem is something. Children watch far too muchTV.
• The FAA concede something.The UFO sighting had occurred.

7. WHAT IS A SUBORDINATOR (CONT.)?
The second sentences merge into the first and become something called the subordinate
clause.
Think of it as a company where the first sentence is the boss and the second is the
employee.
That functions as a way of bridging these two sentences into one, and we call it a
subordinator (“One who subordinates” if you think about your Morphology!).

8. DIAGRAMMING A SUBORDINATOR
Take a look at the diagram on page 184 of your textbook, especially the box around the NP: DObj.
• that (snake meat keeps you warm in winter).
You know how to diagram the part in parentheses as if it were its own sentence.Then, simply label that as
“Subord.”
But……..

9. DIAGRAMMING A SUBORDINATOR (CONT.)
Here’s the catch.
Once you have diagrammed the sentence,“snake meat keeps you warm in winter,” don’t call it “S.” Call it “NClause” (Noun Clause).
Crucially, you take NClause:“snake meat keeps you warm in winter” and combine it with Subord.“that” to make another
“NClause.”
“that” and “snake meat keeps you warm in winter” are separate components here, and you have to reflect that in your diagram. But
once they are linked, you’ll see that NClause:“that | snake meat keeps you warm in winter” is the Direct Object of the larger
sentence:
• “Chinese cooks claim that snake meat keeps you warm in winter.”
Where claim is a simple transitive verb.

10. NOUN CLAUSES FILL NP SLOTS
What is the difference between relative clauses and noun clauses?

11. RELATIVE CLAUSESVS. NOUN CLAUSES
Our last two chapters have been concerned with Relative Clauses. Now, we are discussing Noun Clauses.
I like the textbook’s example of the difference here:
• Chinese cooks claim that snake meat keeps you warm in winter.
• Chinese cooks prepare snake-meat dishes that keep you warm in winter.
See how in the second example,“that keep you warm in winter” is an adjective describing “snake-meat dishes?”
This is a relative clause.
In the first example, though,“that snake meat keeps you warm in winter” is the direct object of what is being
claimed.This is a noun clause.

12. TRY THIS!
Try the gray “TryThis” box on page 186 before you continue to the next slide.

13. TRY THIS:ANSWERS
Noun Clauses:
• I noticed that his shoes were new.
• The athletes were assured the maneuver was legal.
• We felt that the restaurant we visited was not worth four stars.
Relative Clauses:
• The woman found the ring that she had lost many years before.
• The discovery the physicists made may revolutionize the field.
• Those performers that wish to join the program must promise they won’t quit.
• Remember you must pay strict attention to the directions you were given.

14. WHAT IF THERE IS NO “THAT” ?
Maybe you noticed that in both the relative clauses and noun clauses, sometimes the “that”
is missing! It is still there, but it has been deleted because its presence isn’t grammatically
required. Still, a careful diagrammer will recognize that “that” is still operating.
So if you have a noun clause, I recommend that you leave an empty space in your
diagram and label it as the subordinator, then continue to diagram up to the NClause
just as you would if the “that” were present.

15. TRY THIS:ANSWERS (CONT.)
Let’s return to the Try This exercise.
NClause:
• I noticed that (his shoes were new).
• The athletes were assured that (the maneuver was legal).
• We felt that (the restaurant that we visited was not worth four stars).
In all of these, you can see how the bolded “that” links the two separate sentences into one.The second sentence is the NClause.
In the second example, I have bold italicized “that” because the original sentence doesn’t include it, but you can see how it is still doing the
subordinating work. It’s like a ghost!
In the third example, I have italicized “that” because it isn’t included in the original sentence, and it isn’t a subordinator. Nope, instead, our
editors have sneakily included that as an example of a relative clause here, because “we visited” is an adjective describing the restaurant!

16. EXTRAPOSING “THAT CLAUSES”
Grammatical Subject vs.Adjective Complements and Logical Subjects

17. “IT”
One irritating thing we do all the time is start sentences with a construction like “It…
that…” like in the textbook examples:
• It astonished Americans that the 747s crashed into theWorldTrade Center.
• It is remarkable that Barbie has sold well for decades.

18. SENTENCES STARTING WITH “THAT.”
The argument here is that these sentences can be reduced to Noun Clauses as follows:
• It astonished Americans that the 747s crashed into the World Trade Center.
• That the 747s crashed into the World Trade Center astonished Americans.
It’s worth pointing out that if you diagram something like the second sentence, just label “That” as the “Subord.”
and then diagram “the 747s crashed into the World Trade Center” as a sentence (labelled NClause). Finally, link
the Subord. with the NClause into another NClause, and call that the NP Subj of the S.
Or…
S → NP: Subj. → NClause (that the 747s…) → NClause (the 747s…)

19. “IT” AS AN EXPLETIVE
So what do we do about the “It” in “It astonished Americans that the 747s crashed into the
WorldTrade Center.” ?
The first part is simple.“It” is called an “expletive,” and you can just label it “Expl.”
The second part is more difficult.You have to distinguish between Syntax and Semantics a
bit here to determine which part is the grammatical subject and which part is the logical
subject.

20. GRAMMATICALVS. LOGICAL SUBJECTS
In “It astonished Americans that the 747s crashed into theWorldTrade Center,” hopefully
you see that “It” is the NP: Subj of the entire sentence.
But “It” doesn’t really mean anything. So we call it the “Grammatical Subject” and label it:
“NP: GramSubj.”This is the SYNTAX, and really what I care about you getting right, so I
won’t further complicate the matter!

21. WH- SUBORDINATORS
Dual Function, Movement,What to ask when diagramming

22. WHAT ARE WH- SUBORDINATORS
All your wh- question words plus how, how often, whether, etc. can also be subordinators.These are in the same
vein as the “wh- cleft constructions” that I shared with you earlier this semester.The book provides the following
examples:
• What software manufacturers pray for is a hot-selling product like Quicken.
• Bloom’s book explains how rock music fills a spiritual void in our society.
• The Depression-era photographs remind us of who we are.
• The school superintendents told the governor how her tax proposals would affect educational sending.
Like with “that,” all these sentences can be broken into at least two sentences, including one subordinate phrase.

23. IDENTIFYING WH- SUBORDINATES
• What software manufacturers pray for is a hot-selling product like Quicken
This sentence can be thought of as the combination of:
“Software manufacturers pray for something. It is a hot-selling product like Quicken.”
Or,“The thing that software manufacturers pray for is a hot-selling product like Quicken.”

24. IDENTIFYING WH- SUBORDINATES (CONT.)
Can you kind of see how the “what” is serving the purpose of bridging the two clauses together. Remember
how when we diagrammed question words, the question words stood in for the missing information in a
sentence. So if we had a sentence like:
• “What do you do for work?”
It’s easier to diagram:“You do X for work” and then move the “do” and the “x” accordingly to create the
question. Here,“X” stands in for “what.”
• “You doWHAT for work.”

25. IDENTIFYING WH- SUBORDINATES (CONT.)
The very same thing is happening with our wh- subordinates.They stand in for unknown information. In:
• “What software manufacturers pray for is a hot-selling product like Quicken.”
We don’t know what the product is, so we use “what.” Imagine writing:
• “Software manufacturers pray for X. X is a hot-selling product like Quicken.”
• “Software manufacturers pray forWHAT is a hot-selling product like Quicken.”
See how theWHAT bridges these sentences?

26. DIAGRAMMING WH- SUBORDINATES
Take a look at the diagram on page 189, especially the boxed in NP: Subj. See how the book essentially diagrammed the phrase:
“Software manufacturers pray for WHAT”
Where we have a basic sentence. S=NP+VP.
NP: Subj “Software manufacturers” plusVP: Pred “pray for WHAT” (where WHAT is the direct object). Only, instead of “S” we have “NClause.”
THEN, finally, at the end, we move WHAT to the beginning of the sentence, label it as Subordinator, and link it to the higher level NClause.
This is why having two levels for the NClause is so important. It allows us to have an NClause = Subord. + NClause.

27. DIAGRAMMING WH- SUBORDINATORS (CONT.)
Let’s take a look at the other example:
• Bloom’s book explains how rock music fills a spiritual void in our society.
We break this sentence into two clauses:
• Bloom’s book explains X.
• Rock music fills a spiritual void in our society SOMEHOW.
We don’t know how rock music fills that void, but we do have “how” as a placeholder in the
meantime.

28. DIAGRAMMING WH- SUBORDINATORS (CONT.)
If you are diagramming one of these sentences, I recommend diagramming the different clauses first:
• Bloom’s book explains X
And treat X as the direct object of “explains.”
Then diagram:
• Rock music fills a spiritual void in our society SOMEHOW.
Once you’re done with the second clause, move “how” to the space between these two clauses and label it
as “Subord.” Remember, the Subordinator simple attaches the Noun Clause (how rock music fills a spiritual
void in our society) to the dominant part of the sentence. Check out the diagram on page 190 for more.

29. FOR… TO
Linking subordinators, Extra Steps when Diagramming the NP, PartialVP

30. TWO WORDS, ONE SUBORDINATOR
We’ve joked in class that the longer I spend around grammar, the less convinced I am that
words exist. Here’s a great example!
In a sentence like:“For the IRS to identify laundered drug money is tough”
Our book argues that “For” and “to” are two parts to the same subordinator!

31. A NOTE ON INFINITIVES
This PPT isn’t going to cover in great detail how we reduce NClauses to infinitives because the
book’s explanation is, I think, pretty good. BUT, in order for “for… to” to make sense, you have
to remember what the book says about infinitives.
An infinitive is an unconjugated verb.“to walk; to run; to study, etc.” instead of “I run; She walks;
He studies, etc.”
The book points out that infinitives like “to study” are broken into two parts where “to” is a
subordinator and “study” is the verb.This distinction makes the “for… to” construction possible.

32. TWO WORDS, ONE SUBORDINATOR (CONT.)
Check out the diagram on page 196. See how “For” is labeled as the Subordinator and
pulled into one part of an “Infinitive Phrase” before ultimately joining the complete NP:
Subj?
Note that little lopsided bracket thing joining “For” to “to.”While you might be inclined to
label “to identify” as one verb, don’t! Instead, just label identify, and make sure “to” is linked
to “for” as the other subordinator.

33. FOR…TO DIAGRAM LABELS EXPLAINED
Let’s take a look at the expanded NP Subj here:
• NP Subj:“For the IRS to identify laundered drug money”
Inf Phrase:
There are some very precise labels you have to use here. First, consider that:“the IRS to identify laundered drug money” is not a
complete sentence.We have the infinitive to identify in there, and that is why you’ll see two levels of what has been labelled as an
“Inf Phrase.”
VP: PartialPred:
You will also see that the book labels “identify laundered drug money” as a PartialPred.This is a question of tense, since the verb
“identify” is not conjugated. But for me it also makes sense to acknowledge that this isn’t theVP: Pred of the sentence.The
sentence continues with “identify laundered drug money is tough” where the bolded part is actually theVP: Pred of the whole
sentence, and “identify laundered drug money” is only part of that infinitive phrase, which is subordinate to the NP: Subj of the
whole sentence.

34. BEFOREWE CONCLUDE…
This chapter also provides a more detailed overview of reducing clauses to infinitive
phrases and learning the difference between gerunds and present participals (present
progressive).These are important for completing the exercises, but I think the book’s
explanations are sufficient once you’ve got this other stuff down!

35. END