THSC That subordinate clauses

Definition

Subordinate clauses introduced by “that” (non-relative), as verb complements (e.g., “I know that he left”).

Detection Rules

That as subordinator (not demonstrative or relative). Refines IN.

cql[word="that" & pos="IN"]

Requires: word, pos

Refines: IN

pybiber

pybiber uses UPOS: preceding VERB + “that” as SCONJ. This is narrower than using fine-grained IN because some “that”-IN tokens have UPOS=ADP (not SCONJ).

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

Requires: word, pos, upos

Normalization

Per finite_verbs

Examples

Did you know that the calendar we use today was started by Julius Caesar?

Source: le_foll_2024

She resented being told constantly that she was ignorant and stupid.

Source: le_foll_2024

Sources

  • biber_1988 — Biber, Douglas (1988) : Variation across Speech and Writing
  • mfte — Le Foll, Elen & Shakir, Muhammad (2023/2025) : Multi-Feature Tagger of English (MFTE) — Python version
  • 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