Lecture 23: Nested structures

23.1 What is a nested structure?

23.1.1 Basic Concepts

Concept

• Core:
• One subordinate clause is embedded inside another clause;
• A sentence may contain several levels of clause nesting;
• Analysis:
• Step 1: Segment the sentence into finite clauses and identify the core of each;
• Step 2: Determine which clause is contained within which larger clause;
• An embedded clause fills a grammatical role inside its containing clause;
• Step 3: Interpret the outer clause and each inner clause layer by layer;

23.1.2 Example Analysis

Examples

• The great question is who should benefit from the analysis of all the data that our lives now generate.
• Step one: Count the finite verbs
• is、should benefit、generate
• Step 2: Punctuation and connectives
• who、that
• Step 3: Analyze from the outer clause inward
• First, identify the outer main clause:
• The great question is ...
• Then identify its subject complement:
• who should benefit from the analysis of all the data ...: embedded interrogative clause functioning as a predicative complement;
• Looking further inside:
• that our lives now generate: relative clause modifying data;
• Logical Relationships:
• 
• It hoped they would learn how shop-floor lighting affected workers' productivity.
• Finite verb:
• hoped -> actively hoping -> finite verb;
• would learn -> finite verb;
• affected -> actively affecting -> finite verb;
• Connectives: omitted that before they would learn, and how;
• Clause structure:
• It hoped [that ...]: the omitted that-clause is the object of hoped;
• they would learn [how ...]: the embedded how-clause is the object of learn;
• Logical Relationships:
• 
• If we are serious about ensuring that our science is both meaningful and reproducible, we must ensure that our institutions incentivise that kind of science.
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23.2 Past-Paper Practice

Examples

• Carnegie would be right if arguments were fights, which is how we often think of them.
• 
• A few generative rules are then sufficient to unfold the entire fundamental structure of a language, which is why children can learn it so quickly.
• 
• Look from outside to inside, layer by layer - > First look at the main clause, then the clause;
• Researchers admit that their study does not answer the question of how much businesses ought to spend on CSR
• 
• The most famous of these efforts was initiated by Noam Chomsky, who suggested that humans are born with an innate language-acquisition capacity that dictates a universal grammar.
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• For years executives and headhunters have adhered to the rule that the most attractive CEO candidates are the ones who must be poached.
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• Here is a troubled business that keeps hiring employees whose attitudes vastly annoy the customers.
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