The Noun Clause

an essay by Roger B Rueda

The noun clause seems to be the most exciting part of the English language. This structure fascinates me and it is very impressive, I presume. There seems to be some mystifying effect on how they tart up the whole sentence – to appear more intricate or enigmatic. The noun clause is somewhat a seizer of ideas that seem to be difficult to grab hold of. It can carry the whole concept which is very composite and hard to enclose. It is a puffed-up subject or object. It is something that is humongous for the eyes and for the brain, yet an educated reader/listener can split it in isolation – like an anatomy of a country or of a human being.

I don’t know if the noun clause exists in other languages. I don't know, it does. (In Hiligaynon, the noun clause is somewhat similar to a nominalised sentence. It uses a prefix ‘pag-’ to transform a sentence into a nominative component that can be used as a subject or an object. )

In the that-clause, another form of the noun clause, the pleonastic ‘that’ seems to be a mysterious particle whose existence seems to be very cryptic. For one, it can be erased when it is used as an object – or even as complement for some special adjectives. ‘That’ here seems to be a decorative particle to mark an idea. Isn’t it something stimulating to think of – though how subtle it is.

One has to be good at all the different patterns of the sentence for one to be able to be good at formulating the noun clause. For one thing, the noun clause follows the rules of formulating a sentence. In constructing a sentence, one has to think through many things – the tense, the collocation, the concord, etc. A correct noun clause is easy to distinguish. The relative pronoun/adverb characterises the noun/adverb which all actions and concepts are focussed on – as perhaps it is a secret, or it is unknown – or something which uncertainty must be set to form an effect. The relative pronoun/adverb then tries to emphasise the missing noun as it can draw the attention of the reader/listener. Internally, it prepares our mind to what is omitted or what is being accentuated by the speaker/writer. The presence of a relative pronoun is a sort of clue that the reader/listener needs to prepare for what seems to be there.

The structure that the noun clause provides seems to be the occurrence (or locale) that helps ideas to settle there as if it was a cornucopia that gives space to every idea the speaker says. It is a sort of construction that seems to be difficult to handle, yet when it is controlled well with art, the effect in the sentence is very creative and creates an aesthetic appeal or unknowingness towards our subconscious, towards our complexity which we, too, fail to know well. It is the structure that holds our saneness and upholds our cognisance that is very long-winded and profound.

The noun clause collocates with some verbs and adjectives, so a careful use of them is essential. The speaker/writer needs to familiarise herself with what a structure will convey or what image it will generate. The speaker/writer needs to forget the structure of her own language and take on the structure of the noun clause – which is, yes, unique to the English language.

There are a lot of verbs that can be followed by a that-clause/wh-clause. I’ve checked the book ‘A Practical English Grammar’ and what the book has are ‘acknowledge,’ ‘admit,’ ‘advise,’ ‘agree,’ ‘allege,’ ‘announce,’ ‘appear,’ ‘arrange,’ ‘ask,’ ‘believe,’ ‘demand,’ ‘expect,’ ‘happen,’ ‘hear,’ ‘learn,’ ‘observe,’ ‘pretend,’ ‘realise,’ ‘recognise,’ ‘stipulate,’ ‘urge,’ ‘wish,’ ‘wonder’ amongst others.

Too, the that-clause follows a large number of abstract nouns. Some of them are ‘allegation,’ ‘announcement,’ ‘belief,’ ‘discovery,’ ‘fact,’ ‘fear,’ ‘guarantee,’ ‘hope,’ ‘knowledge,’ ‘news,’ ‘promise,’ ‘proposal,’ ‘report,’ ‘rumour,’ ‘suggestion,’ ‘suspicion.’ The that-clause’s role here is of course as appositive. The appositive in a way can act as adjective though primarily it is a noun. According to my Encarta, ‘appositive’ is something that describes words or phrases that refer to the same person or thing and have the same relationship to other sentence elements. The effect then is to clarify what seems to be curt or incomplete. It explicates something that is not well recognised or vague or imprecise.

In any case, anyone who wants to study the noun clause needs to be good at identifying all kinds of verbs – whether it is an action, linking, or helping one. Then she should also know how the subject/object is completed and how it is replaced into a relative pronoun/adverb.

A good guide, too, is imperative. For one, not all verbs/nouns/adjectives can collocate with the noun clause. Accordingly, I want to recommend ‘A Practical English Grammar,’ by AJ Thomson and AV Martinet. A good dictionary can also help you, but it seems it’ll take you ages to leaf through the entire dictionary and catch on what words collocate with the noun clause.