Sentence analysis--one sentence

Question

That's what I told Bill happened.happened=part of speech?Thank you

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

Verb complement? Tell...happened. See...happen, etc.

English 1b3 · Answer

Mister MicawberVerb complement?

I thought a verb complement was just another name for direct and indirect objects, which 'happen' isn't.

Is it an object complement perhaps? Surely it can't be because it doesn't tell us about the object.

CalifJim · Answer

English 1b3happened=part of speech?

Verb. Why not?

That's [the thing that / what] happened. It happened.

(It's [the thing that / what] I told Bill, too.)

It's like That's what ([I said / I thought]) happened.

__________________

There's something anomalous here, though. My ear is reluctant to accept the sentence as grammatical in the first place.

?That's what I gave Mary exploded.
?That's what Larry showed Alice remained.
?That's what she brought Nancy leaked onto the floor.

... though maybe with certain verbs, especially verbs of reporting, it's OK.

CJ

English 1b3 · Answer

So you accept That's what I said happened but not That's what I told Bill happened?

The first does sound far less awkward to me, too.

CalifJim · Answer

English 1b3So you accept That's what I said happened but not That's what I told Bill happened?

I accept the first, and I'm still on the fence regarding the second -- but tending toward non-acceptance.

CJ

BillJ · Answer

CalifJim
English 1b3So you accept That's what I said happened but not That's what I told Bill happened?
I accept the first, and I'm still on the fence regarding the second -- but tending toward non-acceptance.

It seems quite natural to me, CJ. But it's quite a tricky construction, which probably explains why the OP couldn't tell which part of speech 'happened' belonged to. There are two interesting things going on in this sentence - we have a content clause embedded in a fused relative clause. The fused relative 'what' = 'the thing which' (as you pointed out above), but the complication is that 'which' (i.e. 'the thing') is functioning as subject of the embedded 'happened' clause: "I told Bill 'the thing' happened". So we understand that some thing happened and that's what I told Bill, and that's 'the thing' the whole NP refers to. Note that 'the thing' is subject not of the relative clause itself but of the content clause embedded within it.

All that complicated stuff now enables us to identify 'happened' as a verb whose subject is 'the thing'.

BillJ

Sentence analysis--one sentence

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