Whatever happens at least he will have a good education

[PinkSunflower]

I have been teaching English for the last 6 months and still have a lot to learn.
I am hoping that someone can give me some help with the following sentence.
"Whatever happens at least he will have a good education".

I have been trying to break down the sentence into its grammar parts and I am stuck when it comes to determining the grammar component that whatever has in this sentence. My breakdown so far is:

he will have a good education - main clause
he - subject
will have - future perfect tense of verb have
a - indefinite article
good - adjective
education - noun

Whatever happens at least - subordinate clause (is this an adverbial subordinate clause?)
whatever - ???? relative pronoun / determiner / adverbial also is it the subject or object of happens??
happens - simple tense verb happen
at least - idol / adverb of degree

Thank you for any help

 

[emsr2d2]

I'll leave it to a grammar expert to deal with the main question but I will point out that you need a comma after "Whatever happens", and a full stop at the end of your final sentence.

 

[jutfrank]

Whatever happens, at least he will have a good education.

You can see that at least belongs in the main clause. It's used here optimistically to say that there will be one good thing despite other things being bad. It doesn't modify by degree.

The red part can be considered an expression in itself, so teach it as a whole chunk of language. Whatever is functioning as subject of happens.

 

[5jj]

will have - future perfect tense of verb have

No.

If you accept the existence of a future tense in English, this an example of one. It is not future perfect.
I would call it a modal construction expressing futurity.