What vs that

Question

I know that the second sentence is the right one, just can't explain why.I couldn't believe THAT he said.I couldn't believe WHAT he said.Please, some englightenment for the layman. Thanks.

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lee wrote on 14 Oct 2004:
[nq:1]I know that the second sentence is the right one, just can't explain why. I couldn't believe THAT he said. I couldn't believe WHAT he said. Please, some englightenment for the layman. Thanks.[/nq]
"Say" is transitive and needs a direct object (DO). "What" is a pronoun that serves as the DO and requires a word-order change in this context. "That" is also a pronoun and can serve as the DO of "say", but not in the first sentence above it would have to read "I couldn't believe (that) he said THAT". In your first example sentence above it looks like a subordinating conjunction, and it appears that the verb "said" has no DO. Word order is not inverted when "that" is used.

In the first sentence, "that" can stand for and be replaced by "the fact that".
In the second sentence, "what" stands for and can be replaced by only the thing that "he said".
Both "that" and "what" can be used in questions:
He said that?
He said what?
But only the second sentence can take question word-order:

*That did he say?
What did he say?

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
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Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]lee wrote on 14 Oct 2004:[/nq]
[nq:2]I know that the second sentence is the right one, ... WHAT he said. Please, some englightenment for the layman. Thanks.[/nq]
[nq:1]"Say" is transitive and needs a direct object (DO). "What" is a pronoun that serves as the DO and requires ... He said what? But only the second sentence can take question word-order: *That did he say? What did he say?[/nq]
John said that that that, that that man said, should be this.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I know that the second sentence is the right one, just can't explain why. I couldn't believe THAT he said. I couldn't believe WHAT he said. Please, some enlightenment for the layman. Thanks.[/nq]
'That he said' is a relative clause and must modify a head noun. It can't be a noun phrase by itself and therefore it can't be the object of 'believe'.
'What he said', by contrast, is an embedded question, a form of noun clause, and therefore can be the object of 'believe', which explicitly allows embedded question complements, along with that-clause complements, another form of noun clause.
Probably you're confused because you can say
I couldn't believe THAT he said IT.
In this case, 'that he said it' is a that-clause complement, and not a relative clause like 'that he said'. In the relative clause, 'that' is the relativized object of 'said'. In the that-clause, 'it' is the object of 'said' and 'he said it' is made into a noun clause by adding the complementizer 'that', which is not a pronoun but a marker for a tensed noun clause. Thus the clause can be the object of 'believe' also.

What a difference IT makes.
-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler Michigan Linguistics Dept "A dog is not considered good because of his barking, and a man is not considered good because of his ability to talk." Chuang Tzu

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