Relative Clauses vs. Complement Clauses

Question

sorry for mistakes. i was completely dizzy last night. I'm from Iran and that's why i have some problems. I knew that " a present " is an direct object. Never mind. let's start again if possible. I have a clear question . consider this sentence please :

The claim that the earth is flat was once widely believed.

could you tell me why " that clause" is a " noun clause" ?

I want to name it " adjective clause " because " the claim " is a " noun phrase " and just " adjective clause " can comes after it? isn't it?

please step by step answer me. Thanks a lot.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

AnonymousSorry for the mistakes. I was completely dizzy last night. I'm from Iran, and that's why I have some problems. I know that "a present" is an direct object.

OK. I'm sorry to hear that being from Iran is the reason for your problems.

AnonymousThe claim that the earth is flat was once widely believed. Could you tell me why the "that" clause is a noun clause ?

For one thing, the words after 'that' form a complete sentence. The earth is flat. Adjective clauses don't do that.

AnonymousI want to ~~name~~ call it an adjective clause because "the claim" is a noun phrase, and ~~just~~ only an adjective clause can ~~comes~~ come after it? ~~isn't it?~~ Right?

No, that's not right. The clause after "the claim" tells the contents of the claim, that is, it says what the claim is, as if it was

The claim is that the earth is flat, and that claim was once widely believed.

which is Noun is Noun-clause, and ...
_________________________________________

If you want an adjective clause, you need a clause that specifies which claim it is:

The claim that Martin made last night is false.

Here Martin made last night is lacking the word 'claim'. It's not a complete sentence. The complete sentence is Martin made the claim last night. And note that the claim was not Martin made the claim last night. We don't know what was claimed in this sentence. Nothing tells us what Martin claimed. (That's completely different from the previous sentence, which says that the claim was The earth is flat.)

CJ

By the way, you are still making some of the same mistakes you made in your earlier post.

1. The word 'I' is always written as a capital letter. It's 'I', not 'i'. This is English lesson 1.

2. There should be no spaces between quotation marks and the word you're quoting. It's "the claim", not " the claim ".

3. After a modal verb like 'can', only the plain form of a verb can be used. It's 'can come', not 'can comes'.

CJ

Relative Clauses vs. Complement Clauses

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