Parsing

Question

"That he avoided committing war crimes was “not by merit”, he insisted." (From the Günter Grass' obituary in the today's Guardian.) Is "he" a subject, "insisted" a predicator and "That he avoided committing war crimes was “not by merit”" an object in the above sentence?

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

You cannot parse a quotation within a sentence as a grammatical whole— However. it seems to be mispunctuated if not misconstructed. Can you link us to the original?

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Interview:

Born in 1927, "almost late enough", he is haunted by how narrowly he escaped being involved in crimes: "That I wasn't is not by merit." His parents ran a corner shop, and in the Depression he was his mother's debt-collector.

Quote for interview

His war came to an end six months later having “never fired a shot”, when he was wounded in Cottbus and captured in a military hospital by the US army. That he avoided committing war crimes was “not by merit”, he insisted.“If I had been born three or four years earlier I would, surely, have seen myself caught up in those crimes.”

That he avoided committing war crimes (Noun clause, subject of "was")
"not by merit" (direct quotation, complement.)

Tkacka15 · Answer

Mister MicawberYou cannot parse a quotation within a sentence as a grammatical whole— However. it seems to be mispunctuated if not misconstructed. Can you link us to the original?

That's the context:

"Grass was born in the Free City of Danzig – now Gdansk – in 1927, “almost late enough”, as he said, to avoid involvement with the **** regime. Conscripted into the army in 1944 at the age of 16, he served as a tank gunner in the Waffen SS, bringing accusations of betrayal, hypocrisy and opportunism when he wrote about it in his 2006 autobiography, Peeling the Onion.
The writer was surprised by the strength of the reaction, arguing that he thought at the time that the SS was merely “an elite unit”, that he had spoken openly about his wartime record in the 1960s, and that he had spent a lifetime “working through” the unquestioning beliefs of his youth in his writing. His war came to an end six months later having “never fired a shot”, when he was wounded in Cottbus and captured in a military hospital by the US army. That he avoided committing war crimes was “not by merit”, he insisted. “If I had been born three or four years earlier I would, surely, have seen myself caught up in those crimes.”" (From: this)

Tkacka15 · Answer

AlpheccaStarsInterview: Born in 1927, "almost late enough", he is haunted by how narrowly he escaped being involved in crimes: "That I wasn't is not by merit." His parents ran a corner shop, and in the Depression he was his mother's debt-collector. Quote for interview His war came to an end six months later having “never fired a shot”, when he was wounded in Cottbus and captured in a military hospital by the US army. That he avoided committing war crimes was “not by merit”, he insisted.“If I had been born three or four years earlier I would, surely, have seen myself caught up in those crimes.” That he avoided committing war crimes (Noun clause, subject of "was")"not by merit" (direct quotation, complement.)

Tanks for the reply. I think that the "he insisted" is the main clause in the sentence That he avoided committing war crimes was “not by merit”, he insisted and it, i.e. "he insisted", doesn't refer to the following sentence “If I had been born three or four years earlier I would, surely, have seen myself caught up in those crimes.”

In my opinion, the clause That he avoided committing war crimes was “not by merit” (parsed: subject/copula/complement) is a subordinate one and does the job of the object of the verb "insisted".

AlpheccaStars · Answer

tkacka15In my opinion, the clause That he avoided committing war crimes was “not by merit” (parsed: subject/copula/complement) is a subordinate one and does the job of the object of the verb "insisted".

OK. I was only parsing the subordinate clause.

CalifJim · Answer

tkacka15In my opinion, the clause That he avoided committing war crimes was “not by merit” (parsed: subject/copula/complement) is a subordinate one and does the job of the object of the verb "insisted".

Yes. It's an inversion, and it omits 'that'.

He insisted that [that he avoided committing war crimes was "not by merit"].

I also sense a cleft structure hiding in there:
He insisted that it was "not by merit" that he avoided committing war crimes.

CJ

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