Please help me analyze the structure

Question

"If there had ever been any danger that the United States military establishment might exploit, to the detriment of civilian control, the goodwill it enjoyed as a result of its victories in World War II, that danger disappeared in the interservice animosities engendered by the battle over unification."

Could you please help me analyze the structure of the sentence?
I suppose there's a typo.

Davkett · Accepted Answer

For starters, there's no typo that I can see, and--

the root sentence [the main subject/verb] is, 'The (that) danger disappeared'.

Jeff_999 · Answer

Thank you, Davkett. But what function does "the goodwill (it enjoyed as a result of its victories in World War II)" perform?

Should it be "if there had ever been any danger (...) to the detriment of civilian control and the goodwill"?

Honestly, I don't understand the sentence quite well.

Davkett · Answer

The connection is...any danger in exploiting the goodwill.

The danger in exploiting goodwill is loss of civilian control.

The danger (of the military establishment's loss of civilian control) disappeared (in squabbles over the unification of the various branches of the military.)

A grammarian may give you a more formal syntactical analysis.

Jeff_999 · Answer

First let's look at this part:
"There had ever been any danger that the United States military establishment might exploit."
"That" is the relative pronoun and "danger" is its antecedent, right? So I think "danger" should be the object of "exploit", if regardless of the meaning.

And I don't think it works, when saying:
"There had ever been any danger that the United States military establishment might exploit the goodwill."
I would rather say:
"It had ever been any danger that the United States military establishment might exploit the goodwill."
or
"There had ever been any danger in exploting the goodwill by the US military establisment."
or
"There had ever been any danger in that the US militatry establishment might exploit the goodwill."

Davkett · Answer

It can be written any number of ways with the meaning still intact. The same words can also be rearranged to the detriment of the meaning.

Let me try to breakdown the sentence into some semantic parts. (Remember, I don't do this as a grammarian.)

If there had been a danger, it disappeared.

If there had been a danger, it would have been caused by exploitation of goodwill.

The danger in exploitation of goodwill is loss of civilian control by the military establishment.

That danger disappeared because there was dissension (animosities) between the various military services.

These animosities were caused by battling over the unification of the various armed services (Army, Air force, Navy, Marines, etc.).

In other words, perhaps-- the United States military establishment was so disunified, and embattled within its own organization, that there was little capability for it to exploit the goodwill it had enjoyed during World War II.

Jeff_999 · Answer

Thank you, Davkett.

I see the meaning. And you rephrased the sentence pretty well.

But I was focusing on "there had ever been any danger that the United States military establishment might exploit the goodwill" in a 'grammatical' way.

Is it okay to say "there's a danger that sb. does sth."?

Isn't it "there's a danger in that sb. does sth." or "it's a danger that sb. does sth."?

Davkett · Answer

Googling the usage produces--

danger that he= 55,700

danger that she = 16,300

danger that they = 113,000

danger in that he = 212

danger in that she = 55

danger in that they = 1,110

Jeff_999 · Answer

Whoa, how did you google that usage? I don't even know google has a function like this?

But we have to rule out the possibility that "'danger' is the antecedent and 'that' is the relative pronoun".

Davkett · Answer

Try Google 'Advanced search', then 'Exact Phrase'.

Jeff_999 · Answer

Thank you, Davkett.

But what to input in the exact-phrase bar?

Back to the question.

You're right Davkett. It is okay to say "there's a/no danger that sb. does sth." I just had a short-circuit in my brain([

] it's translated literally from chinese language. It is a funny way to say someone was dumb at that time. Does it happen in English world? Did anybody use the phrase before?)

Please help me analyze the structure

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