I wonder if it has to do with the animacy hierarchy: humans > domestic animals > mammals > non-mammals > inanimates. Emotion verbs like "hate" and "love" license a human object more strongly than do cognitive verbs like "know"? Herb -----Original Message----- From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Johanna Rubba Sent: Sat 2/16/2008 8:26 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: The use of "that" "That" can be omitted when it precedes a clause that is the direct object of the verb, but not in other cases -- except for the verb "hate", it seems -- for me, the "hate" example without "that" is ungrammatical. Hmm. Dr. Johanna Rubba, Ph. D. Associate Professor, Linguistics Linguistics Minor Advisor English Dept. Cal Poly State University San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 Ofc. tel. : 805-756-2184 Dept. tel.: 805-756-2596 Dept. fax: 805-756-6374 E-mail: [log in to unmask] URL: cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/