Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[fw]

What is the difference in meaning or usage between #1 and #2?
1. That�s very nice of you to say.
2. That�s very nice of you to say that.

Fw

[Mr Ritt]

The "that" at the end of the sentance becomes unnecessary. The first "that" refers to what the other speaker has already said, and so does the last one, so although you may hear both in American English when spoken, they both mean the same thing, and the use of the second "that" is redundant (unnecessarliy repeated) in English.

[Mister Micawber]

In #2, I would call the first that an introductory-that, which is no different from introductory-it:

That�s very nice of you to say that.
It's very nice of you to say that.

On the other hand, the second that in both cases is deictic, pointing toward some previous utterance in the context.

In #1, however, that is simply the deictic-that, referring to the previous utterance.

The difference is more obvious when the two sentences are spoken:

#1-- '/thaets/ very nice of you to /'sei/.
#2-- /th*ts/ very nice of you to /'sie 'thaet/. (Sorry, I have no schwa, so I have subsituted with /*/)
_________________
"I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences." � Gertrude Stein
...............
Canadian-American who teaches English for a living at Mr Micawber's

[fw]

Thank you, Mr Ritt and Mister Micawber.

I appreciate different views from you, which are very interesting to me.

fw