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Anonymous Posted 12 years ago
Grammar
Syntactic help needed
Hello, my name is Claudia. I`m from Argentina, and this is the first time I visit this site. I really need help. Can someone help me analyse the following part of a sentence:
...what he well knew already, that if hardly anythingis known of the causes of psychopathy, even less has been discovered of the ways to cure it.
this part of the sentence is after the verb finding, so it is part of thr predicate and, one of my questions is: is it a nominal relative clause functioning as a direct object? Then, can we consider the verb KNEW intransitive of complete predication since everything after the comma is in apposition? Am I right? I have so many doubts.... Finally, I don`t get the function and category of what comes after THAT. I would be very thankful if someone can clear out my doubts....
...what he well knew already, that if hardly anythingis known of the causes of psychopathy, even less has been discovered of the ways to cure it.
this part of the sentence is after the verb finding, so it is part of thr predicate and, one of my questions is: is it a nominal relative clause functioning as a direct object? Then, can we consider the verb KNEW intransitive of complete predication since everything after the comma is in apposition? Am I right? I have so many doubts.... Finally, I don`t get the function and category of what comes after THAT. I would be very thankful if someone can clear out my doubts....
Top answer
" The verb "knew" in this sentence is intransitive; it has no direct object.
- " The verb "knew" in this sentence is intransitive; it has no direct object.
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6 Answers
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The group of words "what he well knew already" mean the same thing as the group of words "that if hardly anything is known of the causes of psychopathy, even less has been discovered of the ways to cure it." You can see this more clearly if you do some substituting: "That if hardly anything is known of the causes of psychopathy, even less has been discovered of the ways to cure it, he well knew
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And that introducing the relative dependent clause, has the antecedent what.
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AlpheccaStarsAnd that introducing the relative dependent clause, has the antecedent what.The "that" clause is definitely classed as a relative clause, is it?
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GPYThe "that" clause is definitely classed as a relative clause, is it?Well, that is debatable. Certainly it is a dependent clause, perhaps a noun clause or a relative clause with an antecedent.
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…finding what he well knew already, that if hardly anything is known of the causes of psychopathy, even less has been discovered of the ways to cure it.
The underlined expression has the structure of a declarative content clause. Its main clause counterpart would look exactly the same, minus the subordinator that. It can’t be a relative clause because it contains no r
The underlined expression has the structure of a declarative content clause. Its main clause counterpart would look exactly the same, minus the subordinator that. It can’t be a relative clause because it contains no r
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