Real Grammar - Susan Conrad, Douglas Biber 2009

Be + Noun Clause
Unit 35 This is what happens

What have you learned from your grammar textbook?

There are two main types of noun clause: wh-clauses and that-clauses:

• I don’t know why he did that.

• I think that today is Thursday.

What does the corpus show?

A

Be is the most common verb used with a noun clause in academic writing. The typical structure and uses of be + wh-clause are very different from be + that-clause.

B

Be + wh-clause usually occurs with a demonstrative pronoun as subject. The pronoun refers to the previous sentence, while the wh-clause provides new information.

C

The subject of a be + whether-ciause is usually a full noun phrase that refers to a question or issue:

• The question is whether grammar ought to be taught as a separate formal subject.

D

Be + thut-clause usually has a full noun phrase as subject. In this case, the new information is in the that- clause, but the subject tells the reader how to interpret the information; e.g“ an “explanation” or a “result.”

• One result was that older people made greater head movements than younger people.

E

Frequency information. Here is a list of common subject nouns in be + that-clause constructions:

Activities

1 Notice in context: Read the two passages from academic texts, underline the noun clauses and circle the subject of each sentence with a noun clause.

1. From a book, about aquarium plants.

In the second year, these plants drop the underwater leaves and grow above the surface of the water. This is why this species is not suitable for an aquarium.

2. From a study about primary school education.

One very valuable possible audience for project work might be younger children in the same school.

Fourth-year students can produce booklets for first- or second-year students. A good test of suitability of the material they create is whether these younger children can read and understand it and find it enjoyable.

The general point is that primary schools might be more imaginative and flexible in their staff assignments: there is no law that says that there should be one teacher to one class for all of the time.

2 Analyze discourse: Look back at Activity 1 and at the noun clauses that you underlined. Write the function of each noun clause (explanation, reason, time, information, question/issue) in the margin. Draw an arrow between the noun clause and its function. Discuss with a partner.

3 Practice the structure: Complete each sentence with a word from the box. Look at Sections B-E for examples of typical patterns.

1. The interesting question for political sociology is ^who controls or dominates the society.

2. The ... is that, when reading a text for research, students are unlikely to find answers to their research questions in just one area of the text, so students are forced to be selective in what they read. This is ... the skills of skimming a text to gain a general impression are very useful.

3. One particular time when we are concerned with several computer structures is ... we transfer programs from an old computer to a new one.

4. A much more complicated question is ... it might be necessary to consider international law as the default law even for local contracts that do not expressly contain those laws covered by international guidelines.

5. Teacher-training, which still follows traditional teaching techniques, does not offer teachers sufficient guidance for them to be able to adapt to the new requirements of the curriculum, and the ... is that pupils are inadequately guided, and projects and assignments are poorly executed.

6. The fact is ... the family is so important in most people’s social structure and in personal life that much social work cannot be carried out with the client unless it is within the family context.

4 Practice writing: Read the first paragraph from a news article, using the information in the paragraph and your own ideas, write a paragraph to predict how the story ends, and explain your prediction, include at least one of each of the following types of combinations in your paragraph: be + whether, be + wh-word, be + that.

Lachina, then 16 years old, was carrying her cousin Pam on her shoulders in the swift moving waters of the Kaweah River. Lachina slipped on the rocky bottom of the river, and her hair caught in the buttons of Pam’s swimsuit as Lachina’s head went underwater. They began thrashing. “All of a sudden I felt this pushing,” Lachina said. “A lion shoved us — two panicking girls — from behind toward shallow water.”

Example

The main question now is whether the lion will help or hurt the two girls. One possibility is that the lion did not realize the girls were humans. It might. ...