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5.1.3.Subject clauses

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This section discusses subject clauses. That subject clauses are possible is strongly suggested by the fact that the primeless examples in (215), in which the verbs zeggen'to say' and vragen'to ask' take a direct object clause, can be passivized; the resulting primed examples are likely to have a subject clause.

215

a.	Jan zei	[dat	de bank	beroofd	was].
	Jan said	that	the bank	robbed	was
	'Jan said that the bank had been robbed.'

a'.	Er	werd	gezegd	[dat	de bank	beroofd	was].
	there	was	said	that	the bank	robbed	was
	'It was said that the bank had been robbed.'

b.	Marie vroeg	[of	de buit	groot	was].
	Marie asked	whether	the catch	big	was
	'Marie asked whether the catch was big.'

b'.	Er	werd	gevraagd	[of	de buit	groot	was].
	there	was	asked	whether	the catch	big	was
	'It was asked whether the catch was big.'

The acceptability of the primed examples in (215) raises the question as to whether subject clauses can also be selected by active main verbs, subsection I shows that although subject clauses do not occur with intransitive and transitive verbs, they do occur with unaccusative verbs, that is, verbs with a derived DO-subject; from this we may safely conclude that subject clauses are always internal arguments of the matrix verb, subsection II and III discuss, respectively, the position of subject clauses and the use of the anticipatory subject pronoun het.

I. Verb types
II. The placement of subject clauses
III. The anticipatory pronoun het and expletive er

[+] I. Verb types

Generally speaking, subject clauses do not occur with intransitive and transitive verbs. The reason is that such verbs normally take an external argument with the function of agent. Given that clauses refer to propositions/questions/etc., and not to agentive entities, it is expected on semantic grounds that subject clauses cannot occur with such verbs. The examples in (216) show that using subject clauses with (in)transitive verbs indeed gives rise to complete gibberish.

216

a.		Jan lacht.
		Jan laughs

a'.	$	Het	lacht	[dat	Peter zingt].
		it	smiles	that	Peter sings

b.		Jan eet	spinazie.
		Jan eats	spinach

b'.	$	Het	eet	spinazie	[dat Marie	honger	heeft].
		it	eats	spinach	that Marie	hungry	is

There are potential counterexamples to the claim that transitive verbs do not take subject clauses. Example (217a), for instance, shows that the transitive verb bewijzen'to prove' can easily be combined with a clausal subject. Such cases are special, however, in that they involve factive clauses, that is, clauses the truth of which is presupposed by the speaker. Section 5.1.2.3 has shown that normally such clauses can be paraphrased by means of a noun phrase het feit dat ...'the fact that ...', as in (217b), and that they exhibit a number of nominal properties.

217

a.	Het	bewijst	niets	[dat	Peter geen alibi	heeft].
	it	proves	nothing	that	Peter no alibi	has
	'It proves nothing that Peter has no alibi.'

b.	Het feit [dat Peter geen alibi heeft]	bewijst	niets.
	the fact that Peter no alibi has	proves	nothing
	'The fact that Peter has no alibi proves nothing.'

Subject clauses are possible if they are internal arguments of the verb, as is clear from the fact that a transitive sentence such as (218a) is easy to passivize. The (b)-examples show that the passive counterpart of this sentence may either contain the expletive er or the anticipatory pronoun het: this is a reflex of the fact that the anticipatory pronoun is optional in (218a).

218

a.	dat	Jan	(het)	zei	[dat	Peter een nieuwe auto	gekocht	had].
	that	Jan	it	said	that	Peter a new car	bought	had
	'that Jan said (it) that Peter had bought a new car.'

b.	Er	werd	(door Jan)	gezegd	[dat	Peter een nieuwe auto	gekocht	had].
	there	was	by Jan	said	that	Peter a new car	bought	had
	'It was said (by Jan) that Peter had bought a new car.'

b'.	Het	werd	(door Jan)	gezegd	[dat	Peter een nieuwe auto	gekocht	had].
	it	was	by Jan	said	that	Peter a new car	bought	had
	'It was said by Jan that Peter had bought a new car.'

Since the examples in (218) show that DO-subjects may be clausal, it should not come as a surprise that we also find subject clauses with unaccusative verbs. The examples in (219) show that this is quite common with nom-dat verbs; cf. Section 2.1.3. We illustrate this in the (a)-examples by means of a nom-dat verb that takes zijn in the perfect tense, and in the (b)-examples by means of a nom-dat verb that takes hebben.

219

a.	Het	viel	Marie erg	tegen	[dat	Jan erover	klaagde].
	it	disappointed	Marie a.lot	prt.	that	Jan about.it	complained
	'It disappointed Marie terribly that Jan was complaining about it.'

a'.		Het	is Marie	erg	tegengevallen	[dat	Jan erover	klaagde].
		it	is Marie	a.lot	prt.-disappointed	that	Jan about.it	complained

b.	Het	bevreemde	Marie zeer	[dat	Jan erover	klaagde].
	it	surprised	Marie much	that	Jan about.it	complained
	'It surprised Marie greatly that Jan was complaining about it.'

b'.		Het	heeft	Marie zeer	bevreemd	[dat	Jan erover	klaagde].
		it	has	Marie much	surprised	that	Jan about.it	complained

Subject clauses are also common with psychological predicates that take an object experiencer; cf. Section 2.5.1.3. This holds both for (220a) with the psych-verb ergeren'to annoy' and for (220b) with the periphrastic expression kwaad maken'to make angry'.

220

a.	Het	ergerde	Peter/hem	[dat	Els er	niet	was].
	it	annoyed	Peter/him	that	Els there	not	was
	'It annoyed Peter/him that Els wasnʼt present.'

b.	Het	maakte	Peter/hem	erg kwaad	[dat	Els er	niet	was].
	it	made	Peter/him	very angry	that	Els there	not	was
	'It made Peter very angry that Els wasnʼt present.'

Note in passing that psych-verbs such as ergeren'to annoy' and many nom-datverbs are object experiencer verbs; consequently, they can be combined successfully with conditional als-clauses; see the examples in (221). Since Section 5.1.2.1, sub VI, has shown on the basis of similar examples with subject experiencer verbs that such als-clauses are not arguments of the verb, we need not elaborate on this here; as illustrated in the primed examples, the fact that preposed als-phrases can be followed by the resumptive element dan'then' suggests that we are dealing with conditional adverbial clauses.

221

a.	Het	valt	me op	als	Jan erover	klaagt.	nom-dat verb
	it	is.conspicuous	me prt.	if	Jan about.it	complains
	'I notice it when Jan complains about it.'

a'.		Als	Jan	erover	klaagt	(dan)	valt	me dat	op.
		if	Jan	about.it	complains	then	is.conspicuous	me that	prt.

b.	Het	staat	me erg	tegen	als	Jan erover	klaagt.	nom-dat verb
	it	palls	me much	on	if	Jan about.it	complains
	'It disgusts me if he complains about it.'

b'.		Als	Jan	erover	klaagt	(dan)	staat	me dat	erg	tegen.
		if	Jan	about.it	complains	then	palls	me that	much	on

c.	Het	ergert	me	als	Els er	niet	is.	psych-verb
	it	annoys	me	if	Els there	not	is
	'It annoys me if Els isnʼt present.'

c'.		Als	Els er	niet	is,	(dan)	ergert	me dat.
		if	Els there	not	is	then	annoys	me that

A conclusive argument for assuming that the als-phrases in (221) are not subject clauses is that the subject pronoun dat in the primed examples cannot be dropped when they occupy the sentence-initial position (that is, when dan'then' is not present). The examples in (222) show that this is compulsory when run-of-the-mill subject clauses introduced by the complementizer dat'that' occupy the initial position, for the simple reason that inclusion of the pronoun dat leads to a clause with two subjects.

222

a.		Dat	Jan	erover	klaagt	valt	me	(*dat)	op.
		that	Jan	about.it	complains	is.conspicuous	me	that	prt.

b.		Dat	Jan erover	klaagt	staat	me	(*dat)	erg	tegen.
		that	Jan about.it	complains	stands	me	that	much	counter

c.		Dat	Els er	niet	is,	ergert	me	(*dat).
		that	Els there	not	is	annoys	me	that

Subject clauses are also very common if they function as the subject of copular constructions, as in (223a). This is expected because such subjects are not the external arguments of the copular, for the same reason that the direct object in the vinden-construction in (223b) is not an internal argument of vinden. In these two cases we are dealing with subjects of the complementive; cf. Section 2.2.2.

223

a.	Het	is vreemd	[dat	Els er	niet	is].
	it	is strange	that	Els there	not	is
	'Itʼs odd that Els isnʼt present.'

b.		Peter vindt	het	vreemd	[dat	Els er	niet	is].
		Peter considers	it	strange	that	Els there	not	is

The copular constructions in (224) show that the adjective bekend may take either a declarative or an interrogative subject clause. The former is always possible, but the latter only occurs if the matrix clause is negative and/or interrogative. The complementizer of is used in the (b)-examples if the relevant decision has not been made public yet, the complementizer dat if the decision has been made public but has (not yet) reached the intended public.

224

a.	Het	is al	bekend	[dat/*of	Els de nieuwe voorzitter wordt].
	it	is already	known	that/whether	Els the new chairman becomes
	'It is already known that Els will be the new Chair.'

b.	Het	is nog niet	bekend	[dat/of	Els de nieuwe voorzitter wordt].
	it	is yet not	known	that/whether	Els the new chairman becomes
	'It isnʼt known yet that/whether Els will be the new Chair.'

b'.	Is het	al/nog niet	bekend	[dat/of	Els de nieuwe voorzitter wordt]?
	is it	already/not yet	known	that/whether	Els the new chairman becomes
	'Is it already/not yet known that/whether Els will be the new Chair?'

Again, it should be noted that we occasionally encounter als-clauses that can easily be misanalyzed as subject clauses. That we are not dealing with subject clauses here is clear from the fact, illustrated in (225), that such als-clauses differ from run-of-the-mill subject clauses introduced by the complementizer dat'that' in that a subject pronoun must be present if the als-clause occupies the sentence-initial position; we must therefore be dealing with conditional clauses.

225

a.	Dat Els	er	niet	is,	is	(*dat)	vreemd.
	that Els	there	not	is	is	that	strange
	'that Els isnʼt present is strange.'

b.	Als	Els	er	niet	is,	is	*(dat)	vreemd.
	if	Els	there	not	is	is	that	strange
	'If Els isnʼt present, that is strange.'

Finally, we want to point out subject clauses are possible with epistemic modal verbs; we will return to this in Section 5.2.2.2 and 5.2.3.2.

226

a.	Het	kan	[dat	Peter morgen	in Utrecht is].
	it	may.be.the.case	that	Peter tomorrow	in Utrecht is
	'It may be the case that Peter will be in Utrecht tomorrow.'

b.	Het	schijnt	[dat	Peter morgen	in Utrecht is].
	it	seems	that	Peter tomorrow	in Utrecht is
	'It seems to be the case that Peter will be in Utrecht tomorrow.'

[+] II. The placement of subject clauses

Subject clauses normally follow the verbs in clause-final position, as shown by the primed examples in (219), which are repeated here for convenience as (227).

227

a.	Het	is Marie	erg	tegengevallen	[dat	Jan erover	klaagde].
	it	is Marie	a.lot	prt.-disappointed	that	Jan about.it	complained
	'It has disappointed Marie terribly that Jan complained about it.'

b.	Het	heeft	Marie zeer	bevreemd	[dat	Jan erover	klaagde].
	it	has	Marie much	surprised	that	Jan about.it	complained
	'It has surprised Marie greatly that Jan was complaining about it.'

Subject clauses may also occur in sentence-initial position, in which case they are optionally followed by the resumptive demonstrative pronoun dat'that'.

228

a.	[Dat	Jan erover	klaagde]	(dat)	is Marie	erg	tegengevallen.
	that	Jan about.it	complained	that	is Marie	a.lot	prt.-disappointed
	'That Jan complained about it has disappointed Marie terribly.'

b.	[Dat	Jan erover	klaagde]	(dat)	heeft	Marie	zeer	bevreemd.
	that	Jan about.it	complained	that	has	Marie	much	surprised
	'That Jan complained about it has surprised Marie greatly.'

The examples in (229) show that it is not possible to have the subject clause in the middle field of the clause; see De Haan (1974) and Koster (1978). The main clauses in the primeless examples have a non-subject in sentence-initial position and the subject clauses of (227) and (228) in the middle field; the primed examples provide the corresponding embedded clauses. Such examples are deemed ungrammatical.

229

a.	*	Waarschijnlijk	is	[dat	Jan erover	klaagde]	Marie erg	tegengevallen.
		probably	is	that	Jan about.it	complained	Marie a.lot	prt.-disappointed

a'.	*	dat	[dat	Jan	erover	klaagde]	Marie erg	tegengevallen	is.
		that	that	Jan	about.it	complained	Marie a.lot	prt.-disappointed	is

b.	*	Waarschijnlijk	heeft	[dat	Jan erover	klaagde]	Marie	erg	bevreemd.
		probably	has	that	Jan about.it	complained	Marie	a.lot	surprised

b'.	*	dat	[dat	Jan erover	klaagde]	Marie	erg	bevreemd	heeft.
		that	that	Jan about.it	complained	Marie	a.lot	surprised	has

We should note, however, that the examples seem at least marginally acceptable if the clause is interpreted as factive: ( het feit) dat Jan erover klaagde. If this is the case, it would not be surprising, considering that Section 5.1.2.3 has shown that factive clauses are more generally used in nominal argument positions. Example (230) provides instances in which the subject clause is more clearly factive, and we believe that these cases are indeed possible (provided that the clause does not become too lengthy).

230

a.	Natuurlijk	bewijst	[(het feit) [dat Peter geen alibi	heeft]]	absoluut niets.
	of.course	proves	the fact that Peter no alibi	has	absolutely nothing
	'Of course, the fact that Peter has no alibi proves absolutely nothing.'

b.	dat	[(het feit) [dat Peter geen alibi	heeft]]	absoluut niets	bewijst.
	that	the fact that Peter no alibi	has	absolutely nothing	proves
	'that the fact that Peter has no alibi proves absolutely nothing.'

Koster (1978) concludes from the fact that subject clauses cannot occur in the regular subject position in the middle field of the clause that subject sentences do not exist. He also proposes that the clauses in (228) are not sentence-internal, but function as sentence-external satellites that bind a (possibly phonetically empty) subject pronoun; actually, according to Koster, we are dealing with a kind of left-dislocation constructions. If we assume that pronouns are moved from the regular subject position into sentence-initial position, examples such as (228a) are analyzed as in (231a) if the demonstrative pronoun is present, and as in (231b) if it is not.

231

[Dat Jan erover klaagde]i

[sentence dati is ti Marie erg tegengevallen].

[Dat Jan erover klaagde]i

[sentence proi is ti Marie erg tegengevallen].

Koster's proposal was challenged in Klein (1979). An important reason is that the prosody of the examples with and without the resumptive pronoun dat differ markedly: while in the former case the clause is normally separated from the sentence by an intonation break, the clause can be prosodically integrated in the sentence in the latter case, as indicated in (232), in which the comma indicates the obligatory intonation break.

232

[Dat Jan erover klaagde], dat is Marie erg tegengevallen.

[Dat Jan erover klaagde] is Marie erg tegengevallen.

If Klein's conclusion that the clause in (232b) is sentence-internal is correct, we should account for the fact that the clause cannot occur in the regular subject position in the examples in (229) by claiming that clauses cannot surface in nominal argument positions. This is in fact the same conclusion drawn for object clauses in Section 5.1.2.2, sub III, to which we refer the reader for further discussion. We will investigate the pros and cons of Koster's proposal in our discussion of topicalization in Section 11.3.2.

[+] III. The anticipatory pronoun het and expletive er

Like object clauses, subject clauses cannot be preposed in sentences that contain the anticipatory pronoun het, as shown in (233b). This would follow immediately from Koster's left-dislocation analysis as the object pronoun must be replaced by the resumptive pronoun dat or its phonetically empty counterpart pro. The structures in (231) show that the position of het in (233b) is already occupied by a trace.

233

a.	Het	is Marie	erg	tegengevallen	[dat	Jan erover	klaagde].
	it	is Marie	a.lot	prt.-disappointed	that	Jan about.it	complained
	'It has greatly disappointed Marie that Jan complained about it.'

b.		[Dat	Jan erover	klaagde]	is	(*het)	Marie erg	tegengevallen.
		that	Jan about.it	complained	is	it	Marie a.lot	prt.-disappointed

The analysis must be slightly different if we accept Klein's conclusion that the subject clause occupies the sentence-initial position if the demonstrative pronoun dat is not present. We then have to assume that the subject clause has not been moved into clause-initial position in one fell swoop but has moved via the regular subject position; the anticipatory pronoun is then blocked given that the subject position is occupied by a trace of the clause. See Section 5.1.2.2, sub III, for a more extensive discussion of this option.
The (b)-examples in (234) show that subject clauses cannot be preposed in clauses that contain expletive er either; er can only be interpreted as an adverbial phrase of place in these examples. The reason for this is different, however, than in the case of het; expletive er can only be used if the subject is part of the focus (new information) of the clause, whereas preposed subject clauses are normally interpreted as being part of the presupposition of the clause.

234

a.	Er	is gebleken	[dat	de software	goed	werkt].
	there	is turned.out	that	the software	well	works
	'It has turned out that the software is working well.'

b.		[dat	de software	goed	werkt]	dat	is (#er)	gebleken.
		that	the software	well	works	that	is there	turned.out

b'.		[dat	de software	goed	werkt]	is (#er)	gebleken.
		that	the software	well	works	is there	turned.out

The option of having the anticipatory pronoun het or the expletive er is not only affected by the position of the subject clause. In examples with a complementive, the position of the secondary predicate may also be relevant. With a sentence-initial predicate het is preferably dropped and er becomes completely impossible.

235

a.	Het/Er	is	duidelijk	geworden	[dat	Jan de nieuwe voorzitter	wordt].
	it/there	is	clear	become	that	Jan the new chairman	becomes
	'It has become clear that Jan will become the new chairman].'

b.		Duidelijk	is	(?het)	geworden	[dat	Jan de nieuwe voorzitter	wordt].
		clear	is	it	become	that	Jan the new chairman	becomes

b'.		Duidelijk	is	(*er)	geworden	[dat	Jan de nieuwe voorzitter	wordt].
		clear	is	there	become	that	Jan the new chairman	becomes

The examples in (236) show that we may find the same phenomenon in perfect-tense constructions with monadic unaccusative verbs taking subject clauses like blijken'to turn out': with topicalized participles, het and er cannot be properly realized. Examples with het and er do occur on the internet but are very rare.

236

a.	Het/Er	is gebleken	[dat	vette vis	gezond	is].
	it/there	is turned.out	that	oily fish	healthy	is
	'It has turned out that oily fish is healthy.'

b.		Gebleken	is	(?het)	[dat	vette vis	gezond	is].
		turned.out	is	it	that	oily fish	healthy	is

b'.		Gebleken	is	(?er)	[dat	vette vis	gezond	is].
		turned.out	is	there	that	oily fish	healthy	is

Although we are not aware of any theoretical account for the markedness of the primeless (b)-examples in (235) and (236), we hypothesize that examples of this type involve some kind of locative inversion of the type we find in English. Den Dikken and Næss (1993) have argued that in examples like Down the hill rolled a baby carriage the predicative PP down the hill has been topicalized via the regular subject position, and that the subject occupies its base position in the small clause headed by the moved predicate; [CP Down the hilli [TPti rolled [SC the baby carriage ti]]]. If we assume something similar for examples such as (235b), insertion of the pronoun het may be blocked given that the regular subject position is occupied by a trace of the moved predicate. A potential problem for this analysis is that this leaves unexplained why insertion of het seems to be marginally possible. Furthermore, it remains to be seen whether an analysis of this sort can be extended to examples such as (236b). The degraded status of the primed (b)-examples can again be related to the information structure of the clause if left dislocation/topicalization of the predicate is only possible if it is part of the presupposition of the clause. We leave it to future research to investigate whether proposals along these lines are viable.
Example (218) in Subsection I has shown that in passive constructions the choice between het and er is related to the question as to whether the object clause in the corresponding passive construction can be combined with the anticipatory pronoun het. It seems that, as in English, clause-final subject clauses in active sentences can always be introduced by anticipatory het and that in many cases they can also be combined with expletive er. The semantic difference between the two options is not always clear, but we may suppose that the choice between the two options depends on whether the subject clause is presented as part of the presupposition or the focus of the sentence. A Google search (1/27/2012) shows that the frequencies of het and er in examples such as (237) are both high.

237

a.	Het	is	duidelijk	geworden	dat ...	presupposition
	it	is	clear	become	that
	'It has become clear that ...'

b.	Er	is	duidelijk	geworden	dat ...	focus
	there	is	clear	become	that
	'It has become clear that ...'

An appeal to the information structure of the sentence seems supported by examples like those in (238). Given that interrogative clauses are less likely to be interpreted as presuppositional than declarative clauses, we expect examples such as (238a) to be extremely rare (despite being definitely grammatical). A Google search (3/22/2013) on this string shows that this expectation is indeed borne out: it resulted in no more than 4 hits. Strings such as (238b), on the other hand, are very frequent.

238

a.	Het	werd	gevraagd	of ...	presupposition
	it	was	asked	whether
	'It was asked whether ...'

b.	Er	werd	gevraagd	of ...	focus
	there	was	asked	whether
	'It was asked whether ...'

Given the result of our Google searches mentioned above, one would also expect the frequency of examples such as (239a) to be much lower than examples such as (239b). This expectation is, however, not borne out: we found 225 cases of the two strings in (239a) and only 13 of the two strings in (239b).

239

a.	Het	is niet/nooit	duidelijk	geworden	of ...
	it	is not/never	clear	become	whether
	'It has not/never become clear whether ...'

b.	Er	is niet/nooit	duidelijk	geworden	of ...
	there	is not/never	clear	become	whether
	'It has not/never become clear whether ...'

The results of our Google searches on the examples in (239) show that there must be other factors, yet to be identified, that must be involved in the choice between het and er. One factor that springs to mind is that the choice is related to the type of predicate, but we leave this for future research.

References:

Dikken, Marcel den & Næss, Alma1993Case dependencies: the case of predicate inversionThe Linguistic Review10303-336
Haan, Ger de1974On extrapositionSpektator4161-183
Klein, Maarten1979Paardekoopers notie <i>aanloop</i> and het bestaansrecht van subjectzinnenGramma387-223
Koster, Jan1978Why subject sentences don't existKeyser, S. Jay (ed.)Recent transformational studies in European languages53-64
Koster, Jan1978Why subject sentences don't existKeyser, S. Jay (ed.)Recent transformational studies in European languages53-64

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About this article

Author(s): Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver

Category: Dutch Syntax

Keywords: Anticipatory PronounArgument ClauseClauseConditional ConjunctionExpletiveFinite Argument ClauseImpersonal PassiveLeft DislocationPassiveResumptive PronounSubjectTemporal ConjunctionTopicalization

Version: 1.0, January 2016

Version history:

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