In Clauses^x, Word order^x

'The committee has met to determine how effective the newsletter is for raising awareness within the division.' This is a relative clause, the object of the verb 'determine'; as such, it assumes the normal S-V sentence word order. Or, you can think of it as an indirect question: the 'original'...

'May I know whom I am speaking with' is the proper word order for subject and verb in the relative clause. There is a problem of register, however, in that the formal 'whom' clashes with the informal terminal preposition. Better alternatives would be: 'May I know with whom I am speaking?' or...

You have come across an alternate way of structuring an "if" clause - a way in which the "if" is missing! The sense of the "if" is carried by the inversion of word order. "were" and "had" are the words which are moved to the front in these constructions. The "were" or "had" then substitutes...

In former times, questions were built by a so called 'inversion', that means Subject and Verb of the actual sentence changed positions: Examples: You like tea. -----> Question: Like you tea? He likes tea. -----> Question: Likes he tea? This was possible as word order did not loom very large,...

The problem here is the word order: In a usual sentence (main clause or subordinate clause), the word order is Subject-Predicate-Object (O): "He told me where you are." Even in an interrogative clauses, this word order remains: "Can you(S) tell(V) me where you are?". (Can here is an auxiliary...

Hello again, Mask. I musunderstood your question, but I see what you mean now. Just like many other English words, "than" belongs to more than one class. It is a preposition in sentences like "She is taller than me", and it is a conjunction in sentences like "She is taller than I (am)." In other...

Hi, Do you know what the matter is? This one is correct. 'what the matter is' is the object of the verb 'know'. In a noun clause beginning with a question word, the subject precedes the verb. Do not use question word order in a noun clause. Does that help?

Well, I'm awfully glad I didn't say there were no exceptions! As a question: "Don't you love her?" As a clause: "I suspect you don't love her". Looks like when it's negative, only the word order changes. Converting to using "whether", as you suggest, is fine of course. It depends on what you...

If you are to use question word order in the main clause, there is another condition that has to be met. The adverbial clause has to be restricting or negating the meaning of the whole sentence. "Only two days earlier, the ships set off", but "Only after the wind had died down did the ships set...

"mountain" is a noun, however the wider sentence does not (cannot) treat this word in isolation, or as part of its OWN syntax. It's just like in math, when you say: 1+2*3, you have to parse (2*3) FIRST before you can parse the rest, which then becomes 1+6. If you parse things in the wrong order,...