Structure(21) S
P P
the postwoman thinks S
P P
the doctor said S
she P
has P
the flu
So far we have looked at sentences which appear inside the second phrase of the
main sentence, but this is not the only position we can find an embedded sentence. For
example, we can find a sentence as the fist element of another sentence:
(22) a [the doctor] worried the postwoman
b [that she had a sore throat] worried the postwoman
In (22b) we have a sentence she had a sore throat introduced by the complementiser
that. This sentence sits in a similar position to the phrase the doctor in (22a), in front
of the verb. Thus, instead of this phrase, we can have a sentence, as in the following
diagram:
(23) S
S P
that she P worried P
had P the postwoman
a sore throat
Furthermore, we can have a sentence inside the first phrase of a sentence:
(24) [the diagnosis that she had the flu] worried the postwoman
Here, the diagnosis that she had the flu, is a phrase which contains the embedded
sentence she had the flu, introduced by a complementiser that. The structure looks as
follows: