Things couldn’t have been worse.
Filch took them down to Professor McGonagall’s study on the first floor, where they sat and waited without saying a word to each other.
Hermione was trembling. Excuses, alibis, and wild cover-up stories
chased each other around Harry’s brain, each more feeble than the
last. He couldn’t see how they were going to get out of trouble this
time. They were cornered. How could they have been so stupid as to
forget the cloak? There was no reason on earth that Professor
McGonagall would accept for their being out of bed and creeping
around the school in the dead of night, let alone being up the tallest
astronomy tower, which was out-of-bounds except for classes.
(Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone)Does the ‘reason’ license that-clause as its modifier and for-phrase as its complement?
Answer
The that is a relative clause and does not require licensing.
The for clause, however, is as you say a complement. Reason licenses clausal complements of several types:
- a reason for going
- a reason for them going
- a reason for their going
- a reason to go
- a reason for them to go
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Listenever , Answer Author : StoneyB on hiatus
