Preposition 'like' followed by 'that' clause
[1] I danced like that there was no one around.
[2] I danced like there was no one around.
[3] I danced as if there was no one around.
As I know, prepositions do not precede that clause except for several cases such as 'in that, except that, but that'. However, one of my friends, who is an ESL teacher, claims sentence 1 is grammatical but we usually drop out 'that' like in sentence [2] while I argue that 'like' itself acts as a conjunction.
So I googles the usage of 'like and that' and read an article which says 'like' cannot be a conjunction and sentence [2] is ungrammatical. It notes sentence 3 is the only correct one.
I am pretty much confused because kinds of sentence [2] normally appear in ESL books in Korea.
Please teachers enlighten me.
Thanks in advance.
Top answer
[1] is ungrammatical because the subordinator “that” is inadmissible in a clause that is complement to a preposition such as "like". Without the subordinator "that", [2] is acceptable, though see below. And [3] is fine too, where we find "as if" in competition with "like".
- [1] is ungrammatical because the subordinator “that” is inadmissible in a clause that is complement to a preposition such as "like".
- Without the subordinator "that", [2] is acceptable, though see below.
- And [3] is fine too, where we find "as if" in competition with "like".
- There is some criticism of the construction in [2] by those who say that the preposition “like” requires a noun phrase complement and cannot take a finite clause like the one in your example.
- Nevertheless, those people are in the minority, and the reality is that [2] is an acceptable, though informal (in BrE), variant of [3].
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[1] is ungrammatical because the subordinator “that” is inadmissible in a clause that is complement to a preposition such as "like".
Without the subordinator "that", [2] is acceptable, though see below.
And [3] is fine too, where we find "as if" in competition with "like".
There is some criticism of the construction in [2] by those who say that the preposition “like” require
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