THADJ THAT clauses as adjective complements

Biber H22 Xiao K93

Definition

THAT-clauses complementing adjectives.

Detection Rules

Adjective governing a that-complement clause.

semgrex{pos:JJ}=adj >ccomp ({} >mark {word:that})

Requires: word, pos, dep

pybiber

pybiber uses UPOS: preceding ADJ + “that” as SCONJ. Simpler than dependency-based approach but catches same pattern.

cql[upos="ADJ"] [word="that" & upos="SCONJ"]

Requires: word, pos, upos

Normalization

Per finite_verbs

Examples

glad that he came

certain that it was true

Sources

  • biber_1988 — Biber, Douglas (1988) : Variation across Speech and Writing
  • pybiber — Brown, David West & Reinhart, Alex (2026) : pybiber — Python package for linguistic feature extraction and Multi-Dimensional Analysis
  • xiao_2009 — Xiao, Richard (2009) : Multidimensional analysis and the study of world Englishes

Notes

Not distinguished from general THAT subordinate clauses (THSC) in MFTE.

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