Nouns such as analysis, approach, idea, philosophy, theory, etc. (which Schmid (2000), in a cognitive-functional approach, refers to as “conceptual shells”) constitute a closed lexical class that undergoes a strong lexico-syntactic constraint as in the following example: (1) Deeply ingrained in American culture is the philosophy [idea/theory/*linguistics/*study] that the ‘government that governs best, governs least’ (BYU-COCA). This paper proposes a syntax-semantics approach to examine meaning construction and communicative purposes of this construction (NP + (V) + that-clause).