GRAMMAR REVIEW: NOUN, ADJECTIVE, AND ADVERB CLAUSES (2) BUILDING SUPPORTING SKILLS CAMBRIDGE PREPARATION FOR THE TOEFL® IBT TEST

 

CAMBRIDGE PREPARATION FOR THE TOEFL® IBT TEST BUILDING SUPPORTING SKILLS GRAMMAR REVIEW: NOUN, ADJECTIVE, AND ADVERB CLAUSES (2)

 

Adjectives clauses Adjective clauses are dependent clauses that are used like adjectives to describe, identify, or give more information about nouns and indefinite pronouns (e.g., someone, anybody, and everything. Like all dependent clauses, adjective clauses have a subject and a verb but they do not form complete sentences. Some examples are shown below: Adjective clause markers An adjective clause is introduced by a clause marker that refers to the noun or pronoun it follows. The most common adjective clause markers are the relative pronouns who, whom, which, whose and that: ► Who and whom are used to refer to people. Who is used in the subject position of a clause, and whom is used in the object position: ► Which is used to refer to things: ► That can used to refer to either people or things: ► Whose is used to refer to the person or thing that possesses something: The clause markers where, when, and whereby can also be used to introduce adjective clauses: ► Where is used to refer to a location or the name of a location. ► When is used to refer to a time. ► Whereby is used to refer to words indicating an agreement: Within adjective clauses, relative pronoun clause markers can fill the same function as nouns. They can be subjects, objects, or objects of prepositions. The clause markers where, when, and whereby take an adverb position: Omitting clause markers Sometimes adjective clause markers can be omitted. If the relative pronoun is the object of the adjective clause, it can be omitted: If the relative pronoun is the object of the preposition in the adjective clause, it can be omitted, and the preposition goes to the end of the clause: However, if the relative pronoun is the subject of the adjective clause, it cannot be omitted: The clause marker when can be omitted, but the relative pronoun whose cannot: Where and Whereby cannot be omitted: Verb tenses in adjective clauses Although the tenses of the adjective clause and the independent clause may differ, they must be logical together. In both of the following sentences, the verb in the adjective clause is in the past tense and the verb in the independent clause is in the present continuous tense. However, the first sentence is correct and the second one does not make sense: Reduced adjective clauses Some adjective clause can be reduced to phrases. Unlike a clause, a phrase is a group of words that does not contain both a subject and a verb. An adjective clause can often be reduced to an adjective phrase when the relative pronoun of the adjective clause is the subject of the clause. Study the following examples to see how the clause is reduced. Note that the clause marker as well as the auxiliary verbs and/or the verb be are omitted. Any changes to the main verb depend on the voice. The –ing form is used for the active voice and the –ed form is used for the passive voice. 1 active voice: 2 passive voice 3 subject + to be + adjective: 4 subject + to be + noun: 5 subject + to be + prepositional phrase: A verb that is used to indicate a permanent characteristic takes the –ing form in an adjective phrase. 6 present: 7 past: A verb that is used to indicate an ongoing activity also takes the –ing form: 8 present continuous: 9 past continuous Some adjective clauses cannot be reduced to an adjective phrase. When a clause marker is the object of a clausal verb, it cannot be reduced to an adjective phrase: An adjective clause beginning with whose cannot be reduced without a change in meaning: An adjective clause beginning with a clause marker that takes the adverb position cannot be reduced to an adjective phrase: