[Grammar] What's wrong with you that you keep on bugging me about this?

[smartsmartsmart]

[FONT=&quot]What's wrong with you that[/FONT][FONT=&quot] you keep on bugging me about this?

I wonder why "that" is used grammatically.

I wonder if "1" means "2".
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]1. What's wrong with you that[/FONT][FONT=&quot] you keep on bugging me about this?[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
2. Which that's wrong with you that you keep on bugging me about this?
( "Which" is "that you keep on bugging me about this"}

[/FONT]

 

[tzfujimino]

While I was doing some research on that interesting construction, I found this:

https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/whats-wrong-with-you-that-youre-not-married.3763147/

Is "smartenglish" you?

 

[GoesStation]

[FONT=&quot]What's wrong with you that[/FONT]
I wonder if "1" means "2".
[FONT=&quot]1. What's wrong with you that[/FONT][FONT=&quot] you keep on bugging me about this?[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
2. Which that's wrong with you that you keep on bugging me about this?
( "Which" is "that you keep on bugging me about this"}

[/FONT]

Sentence 2 is meaningless and ungrammatical.

 

[PaulMatthews]

What's wrong with you that you keep on bugging me about this?

I wonder why "that" is used grammatically.

I wonder if "1" means "2".
1. What's wrong with you that you keep on bugging me about this?
2. Which that's wrong with you that you keep on bugging me about this?
( "Which" is "that you keep on bugging me about this"}

What's wrong with you that you keep on bugging me about this?

Generally, declarative content clauses function as complement, as in "He said that he felt insulted", but there are a handful of constructions where a declarative content clause functions as an adjunct in clause structure rather than as a complement.

Your example is one such construction. Here, the underlined content clause functions as adjunct to an interrogative clause. Semantically, the adjunct has a resultative meaning: the presupposition of the question can be glossed as "Something is wrong with you with the result that you keep bugging me about this".

Your other example is ungrammatical.

 

[Phaedrus]

What's wrong with you that you keep on bugging me about this?

This sort of "that"-clause is a rare bird -- one of my favorites, though I almost never use it or encounter it.

Normally, such a "that"-clause is set off with a comma: What's wrong with you, that you keep on bugging me about this?

Just yesterday I happened upon a little explanation of this type of "that"-clause in a 2004 essay by Huddleston and Pullum (here):

"(24) i. What has happened, that you are looking so worried?

. . . The declarative content clause in (i) indicate the reason for asking the question: the fact that you are looking so worried suggests that something untoward has happened" (p. 12).

- Rodney Huddleson and Geoffrey Pullum (2004)

Similarly, the example sentence in the OP indicates that the fact that "you" keep on bugging "me" about "this" suggests that something is wrong with "you."

Incidentally, the construction has a long history. It's even in the King James Bible: "What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!"

 

[tedmc]

Since it is meant to tell someone off, I would say it in in two sentences: What's wrong with you? Stop bugging me about this!

I think the message is not effective if you join them.