The Noun Clause: the That-Clause and the Wh-Clause

These are the clauses which function syntactically as nominals in the larger clause at the structures of subject, object, complement, adjective complement and ‘object’ of the preposition. There are two kinds of noun clause which have subordinating conjunctions. The first is the exocentric that-clause, and the second is the endocentric wh-clauses which are traditionally described as indirect questions. One of the minor embarrassments of teaching a parsing analysis is the similarity of some of the signaling items. In the noun clause signalled by that-conjunction, however, the clause is self-contained in that it does not enter into similar constituent relations with the noun head outside the boundary of its clause. There are five contextual points to be noted of the use of that-clauses as sole complement of the verb be. Noun clauses can be divided into two kinds according to whether or not they require to be lexically realized by an adjoining clause or clauses.