Martha's description is both cogent and clear. As with much of our recent discussion , this one centers around both structure and function. A noun clause, as Martha points out, has a different internal structure than a relative clause does. (Perhaps the best argument for seeing the relative "pronoun" as a "pronoun" is its difference from the noun clause "that", but it's hard not to say that without anticipating objections.) Noun clauses and relative clauses can function in the same slot (as postnominal modifiers). More often than not, the analysis isn't overly important.
I have had good luck with examples drawn from mental process verbs that often take noun clauses as direct objects. I believe that she is my friend. My belief that she is my friend is deeply grounded. Students can see that the noun clause in the second sentence has been moved intact into this postnominal (appositional) role.
Lots of times, these noun clauses act to restrict down fairly abstract verb derived nouns like belief, hope, conclusion, conjecture and so on. (His hope that we will come... His conjecture that the building will collapse... Her wish that we would stop quarreling...) If the noun they are modifying appositionally is already a category of one, then the appositional noun clause will be nonrestrictive. (Her dearest hope, that her children would graduate from college, finally came to pass.)
These aren't the only ways that noun clause apposition is generated or shows up, but it seems to get the idea across fairly successfully on first presentation. Once the students recognize it as a noun clause, it's easier to see what's happening when we shift it around.
Because much grammar is still fairly new to me, I can sympathize. I remember how hard it was for this distinction to come clear.
I hope that helps.

Craig
Martha Kolln wrote:

[log in to unmask]"> Re: appositive vs relative clause
Beth,

I would add to Bruce's description of the two "that"s: In the relative clause, "that" has a slot to fill in the clause itself--that of subject (and this is always true of the relative pronouns and relative adverbs that introduce adjectival clauses: pronouns fill a nominal slot or, in the case of the possessive "whose," a determiner slot; relative adverbs function as an adverbial in the clause); in the nominal clause, "that" serves only as an introducer, a nominalizer, with no function in the clause itself. Students who have learned traditional diagramming can picture the nominalizer "that" hovering over the clause, like an outsider; they can picture the relative pronoun firmly settled on or attached to the clause's main line.

I call the relative-clause "that" a relative pronoun (I've learned only recently that this term is debatable); I call the nominalizer "that" an expletive, as many traditional grammarians do.

Martha

Beth,

I would like to mention how I approach this with my students. This may help, though you seem to reach the same point another way.

One function of an adjective is to identify the reference of a noun. The noun also can serve to help identify the reference of another noun. This is the appositive. By the same token the noun clause and the adjective clause can both have an identifying function. There are a good number of particular nouns that need further identification, and the noun clause is naturally used with them: fact, claim, rumor, statement, decision, idea, etc. These all denote concepts which are potentially worded as sentences. In such cases it is possible to express (redundantly) both functions (identifying adjective/statement) by repeating the connective "that." Hence, "They espoused the belief that is that God exists" has two connectives. The first "that" is the connective of an adjective clause (relative, pointing to "belief") and the second is the connective of the noun clause. If you can build this redundant construction logically, then you have the appositive.

Bruce

>>> [log in to unmask] 3/9/2005 7:45:48 AM >>>

Thanks, everyone. The "which" test does work on sentence 1, but not
sentence 2. Maybe we idiomatically prefer "the fact that . . . " or
maybe I should have agreed that sentence 2 was an appositive? I can see
that it's definitely an appositive in the sentence "That fact, that they
didn't like chocolate, surprised her"--but that's not the same
sentence.

Ultimately, I guess it doesn't matter that much. These sentences won't
appear on any test--the students wrote the sentences for a different
activity. I can just agree that sometimes it's really hard to tell what
a clause is doing, just like it's sometimes really hard to tell what a
prepositional phrase is doing, and leave it at that.

Thanks,

Beth

>Here are a couple of example sentences with the suspected appositives
>in brackets:
>
>1. The book, [that was titled 'Great Expectations',] was a classic.
>
>2. The fact [that they didn't like chocolate] surprised her.

Beth Rapp Young
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~byoung

University of Central Florida
>From Promise to Prominence: Celebrating 40 Years.

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