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So if you couldn't figure out the question from the title, does the subordinating conjunction (the word "that") precede or succeed the extra information between the commas?

Oom_Ben
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1 Answers1

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The first version is the correct one. On average relates to the information you found out, not to your finding it.

Kate Bunting
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  • I think the principle here can be clearly illustrated with something like He knew that tomorrow* he would die* - where if we move the word *that* to after "adverbial" *tomorrow, we end up with something that's clearly nonsense: He knew tomorrow that he would die. But in OP's exact context it's not that obvious to me that every native speaker would particularly notice and/or interpret the two versions differently. And that's even more the case if we replace on average* by, say, *obviously* (in which case both versions mean "more or less" the same to me). – FumbleFingers Dec 09 '20 at 13:36
  • Yes, I agree that many native speakers might not notice. – Kate Bunting Dec 09 '20 at 19:49
  • Actually, I think there are potentially *three* possible parsings for such constructions, even if they net down to only one or two possible meanings. The flexibly interpreted adverbial element might attach to the verb in the "lead-in clause" (I found, He knew) or to the following "that-clause", but it could ALSO sometimes be seen as a "whole sentence adverb". Which in practice would normally carry one or other of the previous two senses, but I'm guessing you could contrive examples where it really does have a third meaning. – FumbleFingers Dec 10 '20 at 12:12