Subordinate Clause

Question

I could talk for hours about the effects of alcohol, not that anyone would want me to. 1) Is this sentence grammatical?2) What type of subordinate clause is the one in bold? 3) If the group of words in bold is an adverbial clause, what question does it answer?4) If the group of words in bold is an adverbial clause, where is the subordinating conjunction?Thanks

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

1) Is this sentence grammatical? Yes.

2) What type of subordinate clause is the one in bold?
If you analyze it as subordinate, it is an adverbial clause of concession. The paraphrase in that case is:

I could talk for hours about the effects of alcohol, although no one would want me to.

You might analyze it as an independent clause, assuming that "but" is the missing conjunction.

I could talk for hours about the effects of alcohol, but it is not the case that anyone would want me to.

3) If the group of words in bold is an adverbial clause, what question does it answer? As far as I know, you can't question a concessive clause, so I don't see how we could make a question that satisfies your request here.

4) If the group of words in bold is an adverbial clause, where is the subordinating conjunction?
You can say that "that" or "not that" is the conjunction, or you can say that the conjunction is an implicit "although" or "but", depending how you want to analyze the construction, as discussed above.

CJ

English 1b3 · Answer

Thank you

I had a feeling the type of clause this is was slightly inconcspicuous. I even considered re-phrasing as you have done, but I was unsure whether this was acceptable. Now I know

Subordinate Clause

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions