Using grammar to build utterances

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Hi,As far as I know, prepositions do not allow a declarative content clause as their complement. ex1) You can rely on that they'll be here on time .(X)ex2) Are they indifferent to that the dog can easily pick up germs from the preceding patient?(X)So, you need "the fact" in order to incorporate those declarative content clauses into the prepositonal phrases.ex1) You can rely on the fact that they'll be here on time.(O)ex2) Are they different to the fact that the dog can easily pick up germs from the preceding patient.(O)My question is whether the extraposed versions of the "that-clauses" can be combined with the prepositions without adding "the fact".ex1) You can rely on it that they'll be here on time.(?)ex2) Are they indifferent to it that the dog can easily pick up germs from the preceding patient?(?)I'd appreciate your help.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

They may be spoken, but they are very awkward.

You can rely on their being on time.

Are they indifferent to the possibility that...?

AlpheccaStars · Answer

jooneyHi,

As far as I know, prepositions do not allow a declarative content clause as their complement.

ex1) You can rely on that they'll be here on time .(X)

ex2) Are they indifferent to that the dog can easily pick up germs from the preceding patient?(X)

So, you need "the fact" in order to incorporate those declarative content clauses into the prepositonal phrases.

ex1) You can rely on the fact that they'll be here on time.(O)

ex2) Are they different to the fact that the dog can easily pick up germs from the preceding patient.(O)

My question is whether the extraposed versions of the "that-clauses" can be combined with the prepositions without adding "the fact".

ex1) You can rely on it that they'll be here on time.(?)

ex2) Are they indifferent to it that the dog can easily pick up germs from the preceding patient?(?)
I'd appreciate your help.

ex1) You can rely on it that they'll be here on time.(?) No, a reduced gerund clause is the solution:

You can rely on their being here on time.

ex2) Are they indifferent to it that the dog can easily pick up germs from the preceding patient?(?) No. But there is not an equivalent gerund clause because can, being a modal auxiliary, does not have a gerund. Here are a couple of re-writes which preserve the mood.

Are they indifferent to the possibility of the dog's picking up germs from the preceding patient?

Are they indifferent to the possibility that the dog will easily pick up germs from the preceding patient?

Jooney · Answer

Thank you for the reply, Mr. M.

Jooney · Answer

Thank you for your answers, Astars.

Jooney · Answer

I still find it very difficult to formulate a sentence using a grammatical rule.  I guess I need to study harder.

CalifJim · Answer

jooneyI still find it very difficult to formulate a sentence using a grammatical rule.

Not surprising. It's almost working backwards. It's trying to reverse engineer the whole language. Native speakers just speak, unaware of grammar. The grammarians make up the rules to describe the language. And the description is nowhere near the level of detail necessary to generate language. Language comes first. Grammar comes later. Grammar is not language. Grammar is about language.

Having a description of a thing doesn't necessarily mean you can produce it yourself from the description. Someone might describe horses in great detail to me. That doesn't mean I can draw a horse. I can only get better at drawing horses by continually drawing horses - probably by imitating others who are good at drawing horses. I might do it badly at first, but hopefully I improve with each attempt.

It seems to me that the same works for language. Assembling grammatical rules and attempting to formulate sentences from these rules does not seem to me to be the optimum formula for success.

CJ

Jooney · Answer

Thank you for the helpful suggestions, CJ. I too think that knowing grammatical rules alone won't guarantee success in acquring language. And it also seems to be true that there is a lot of areas of English language for which grammatical rules have no explanations.

I feel that I still have a long way to go. It is sometimes frustrating to see that my knowledge of English is still very limited, but I'll keep trying to get better. I hope you and other native speaker teachers will be around on this forum for a very long time.

Using grammar to build utterances

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