The syntactic patterns dealt with in this chapter are called content clauses (Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 949–1030), sentential complements (Traugott 1992: 233–249), nominal clauses (Quirk et al. 1985: 1048–1068, Rissanen 1999: 282–292) or noun clauses (Mitchell 1985: §§1935–2102). They are a subclass of dependent clauses, and they have functions similar to noun phrases. Studies on subjunctives in noun clauses usually focus on object clauses; the relevant constructions are called mandative or subjunctive constructions. They will receive special attention in this chapter, too.

Old English noun clauses: descriptive parameters

Function

The simplest and most straightforward functional classification of OE noun clauses is applied in the subjunctive treatments by Vogt (1930) and Wilde (1939/1940). Both authors study the use of the subjunctive in object clauses and subject clauses. The same classification is also adopted by Visser (1963–1973: §§863–875).

The functions which Traugott (1992: 234–235) distinguishes are ‘complements of NPs or predicates, and … objects, or oblique NPs’. She rejects the notion of OE subject clauses, because ‘noun clauses cannot occur in sentence-initial position, i.e. there is no equivalent of That they arrived so late is a problem’. She prefers to analyse noun clauses which on the basis of their equivalents in PDE could be interpreted as subject clauses as ‘oblique NPs in impersonal constructions, as complements of NPs or predicates’. She also considers the possibility that the function of some of these noun clauses is ‘undecidable’. The cases she has in mind are constructions with impersonal verbs and constructions with beon/wesan or similar verbs and an adjectival subject complement.

In examples [4.1] and [4.2] Traugott would prefer to analyse the thatclause as an oblique NP and as a predicate complement respectively, although she adds: ‘On the other hand, it could be the subject’ (Traugott 1992: 235).