coordinationthat

Coordinationthat is a term used in some linguistic discussions to describe a pattern in which two or more sentential clauses, each beginning with the complementizer that, are coordinated by a conjunction such as and or or. In its simplest form, the construction yields sentences like She said that she would attend, and that she would stay. The repeated that can provide a clear signal of parallel clausal structure and may affect prosody and parsing.

The term is not universally standardized and does not appear in all grammars. It is largely found in theoretical discussions and language-pedagogy blogs as a way to describe how multiple that-clauses can be joined to form multi-clausal coordination. Some analysts treat these sequences as ordinary coordination of sentential complements, possibly with ellipsis or emphasis, rather than as a distinct syntactic category. Others argue that coordinationthat highlights a specific surface pattern and its implications for agreement, scope, and processing.

Examples illustrate the pattern across moderate complexity: "The witness claimed that she saw the incident, and that she did not." "The report suggested that the project would fail, and that funding would be cut." Dialects and registers vary in how freely the second clause preserves or omits that. Overall, coordinationthat remains a topic of ongoing discussion in studies of English syntax, especially in how speakers manage multiple sentential commitments within a single sentence.

See also: coordination, complementizer that, multi-clausal coordination, ellipsis.