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Using Adjective Clauses
(#1)
Adjective clauses (relative clauses) are like
"sentences
inside sentences." The "job" of
adjective clauses is
to
modify (describe, identify, make
specific) the
noun
phrases that they
follow. In their full
forms, adjective
clauses
have several parts: a
relative pronoun (or, in
some cases,
another kind of connecting word), a
subject,
and a predicate (a verb and,
often, other types of
words
which follow it).
In adjective clauses, the
relative pronoun is a
kind of
connecting
word: it joins the information in the clause
to the noun
phrase that it follows. Without the adjective
clause, the
meaning of the modified noun phrase (and
of the sentence) is unclear
and incomplete.
Examples (full forms):
I know a person who
/
that can help you.
I know a person
who(m) / that you can help.
I know a person
whose
advice I can trust.
I know a person
to whom I can refer you. /
I know a person
who(m)
/ that I can refer you to.
I want a car that
/
which gets good gas mileage.
I can't afford
the car
that / which I really want.
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Types of
Adjective
Clauses
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"Subject
Pattern"
Clauses
In this type of adjective
clause, the relative
pronoun is the
subject of the clause. Subject
pattern clauses
can, however, modify both
subjects and objects of sentences:
The man who /
that
talked to us
was very friendly.
Do you know the man who
/ that
talked to us?
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| 2. |
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"Object Pattern"
Clauses
In this type of adjective
clause, the relative
pronoun is the
object of the clause (but
an object
pattern clause can modify both
subjects and
objects of sentences):
The people who(m)
/ that we met
seemed very
friendly.
The people to whom
/
that we were
speaking
seemed
very
friendly. /
The people who(m) /
that
we were
speaking to
seemed very
friendly.
I recently saw the people
to whom
/ that
we were talking.
/ I recently saw the people
who(m)
/ that we were
talking to.
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| 3. |
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Clauses Showing Possession
Here, the relative pronoun
is possessive
and is attached to another word
in the
adjective
clause:
The people whose names
are
called
will work the first shift.
Do you know the student
whose
brother
won a gold medal in the
Olympics?
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