Abstract
This paper focuses on adjectives complemented by that-clauses as in I am happy that you are well or It is clear that the views of the unions were ignored. A new classification of adjectives will be presented which is based on an empirical analysis of the subject types found in the matrix clause. The classification of adjectives can be corroborated by distributional data. It will be demonstrated that all adjectives followed by that-clauses can be grouped into two classes of adjectives. Each class shows typical co-occurrence patterns which are reflected in the lexico-semantic characteristics of the adjectives. The new classification also covers cases which are referred to as 'subject extraposition'. These cases are included in the classification and will be explained in terms of the same syntactic and semantic criteria which apply to all other adjectives
© 2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
