ADJECTIVE CLAUSES

An ADJECTIVE CLAUSE  is also called a relative clause or an adjectival clause. A CLAUSE is a group of words that have a subject and predicate. There are two kinds of clauses: independent and dependent. Independent clauses are sentences because they express a complete thought. Examples are: “The dog ran away.” and “Get the door.” In the second one, the subject is implied. To explain the function of an ADJECTIVE clause, we will look at dependent clauses.

Dependent Clauses

DEPENDENT  clauses have the subject and predicate but can not stand alone. They depend on another clause to have meaning. Examples are: “When you finish your work” and "unless I get more money.” With each of these, you want to ask “What?” because the thought was not finished. Dependent clauses are also called subordinate clauses and they start with a subordinate conjunction. This is the word that links the dependent clause to the rest of the sentence.  

Examples of subordinate conjunctions are: how, where, when, why, unless, although, after, as far as, as if, because, before, once, whether, while, now that, until, since, and unless.

The three types of dependent clauses are:

• Adverbial (or adverb) - Adverbial clauses function as an adverb and answer the questions: when, where, why, how, and how much. Examples include: “Now that it rained a lot, the grass turned green.” and “I am much olderthan my brother.”

• Nominal - Nominal clauses function as a noun and can be the subject, an object, an appositive, or a complement. Sometimes nominal clauses start with an interrogative like: who, what, when, where, how, who, which, or why. Examples of nominal clauses are: “They always fought over who should pay the bill” and “Whoever did this is in big trouble.
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What Is an Adjective Clause

Adjectives clauses have a subject and a verb (or predicate). They will start with a relative pronoun, like: that, who, whom, whose, or which, or a relative adverb, like why, where, or when. Adjective clauses function as an adjective and modify nouns and pronouns. They are also called relative clauses.