Adjective clauses are dependent
clauses used to modify nouns or pronouns. An adjective
clause usually immediately follows the noun or pronoun it modifies (see Misplaced
Modifiers). A common type of adjective clause is the relative clause. As with
other modifiers, punctuation with adjective clauses is
determined by whether the clauses are restrictive or nonrestrictive.
A dependent clause used as an adjective within a
sentence. Also known as an adjectival clause or a relative clause. An
adjective clause usually begins with a relative pronoun (which, that, who,
whom, whose), a relative adverb (where, when, why), or a zero
relative.
A relative clause is always used to join together two sentences that share one of their arguments. For example, the sentence "The man that I saw yesterday went home" is equivalent to the following two sentences: "The man went home. I saw the man yesterday." In this case, "the man" occurs as argument to both sentences. Note that there is no requirement that the shared argument fulfills the same role in both of the joined sentences; indeed, in this example, "the man" is subject of the first, but direct object of the second.
A relative clause is always used to join together two sentences that share one of their arguments. For example, the sentence "The man that I saw yesterday went home" is equivalent to the following two sentences: "The man went home. I saw the man yesterday." In this case, "the man" occurs as argument to both sentences. Note that there is no requirement that the shared argument fulfills the same role in both of the joined sentences; indeed, in this example, "the man" is subject of the first, but direct object of the second.
Examples :
The happy man walking across the street.
Happy is an adjective modifying the noun man.
It is telling us which man.
(Remember that Which one? is one of the
adjective questions.)
Which man? The happy man.
Now, look at this sentence :
The man who looks happy walking across the
street.
This time, a whole clause is modifying the noun man.
The clause is still telling us which man.
Which man? The man who looks happy.
This clause is an adjective clause. It is a group of
words with a subject and a verb, and it is acting as one part of speech - an
adjective.
Here are examples using these relative pronouns :
·
The person who made the barack needs your help to clean it.
(modifying person)
·
The girl whom
you teach is my nephew. (modifying girl)
·
People whose
dogs shed need to vacuum often. (modifying people)
·
This is the
house that randall built. (modifying house)
·
The book which
I had not read fell on my head. (modifying book)
Here
are several examples of sentences with the adjective clauses underlined :
·
Pizza, which most people love, is not
very healthy.
·
The people whose names are on the list will
go to camp.
·
Grandpa
remembers the old days when there was
no television.
·
Fruit that is grown organically is
expensive.
·
Students who are intelligent get good
grades.
·
Eco-friendly
cars that run on electricity
save gas.
·
I know
someone whose father served in World
War II.
Article Containing Adjective Clauses
:
Global Warming & Climate Change
Global
warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue facing world leaders.
Warnings from the scientific community are becoming louder, as an increasing
body of science points to rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of
human-related greenhouse gases — produced mainly by the burning of fossil fuels
and forests.
Global
emissions of carbon dioxide jumped by the largest amount on record in 2010,
upending the notion that the brief decline during the recession might persist
through the recovery. Emissions rose 5.9 percent in 2010, according to the
Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of scientists. The increase
solidified a trend of ever-rising emissions that scientists fear will make it
difficult, if not impossible, to forestall severe climate change in coming
decades.
However,
the technological, economic and political issues that have to be resolved before
a concerted worldwide effort to reduce emissions can begin have gotten no
simpler, particularly in the face of a global economic slowdown.
For
almost two decades, the United Nations has sponsored annual global talks, the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, an international treaty
signed by 194 countries to cooperatively discuss global climate change and its
impact. The conferences operate on the principle of consensus, meaning that any
of the participating nations can hold up an agreement.
The
conflicts and controversies discussed are monotonously familiar: the differing
obligations of industrialized and developing nations, the question of who will
pay to help poor nations adapt, the urgency of protecting tropical forests and
the need to rapidly develop and deploy clean energy technology.
But
the meetings have often ended in disillusionment, with incremental political
progress but little real impact on the climate. The negotiating process itself
has come under fire from some quarters, including the poorest nations who
believe their needs are being neglected in the fight among the major economic
powers. Criticism has also come from a small but vocal band of climate-change
skeptics, many of them members of the United States Congress, who doubt the
existence of human influence on the climate and ridicule international efforts
to deal with it.
Exercises :
1.
I talked to the women. She
was sitting next to me. (Who)
I
talked to the women who was sitting
next to me.
2.
I have a class. It begins at
8.00 AM. (Which)
I
have a class which begins at 8.00 AM.
3.
The man called the police. His
car was Stolen. (Whose)
The
man called the police whose car was
stolen.
4.
The building is very old. He lives there.
(Where)
The
building is very old where he lives.
5.
The woman was Ms. Silvy. I saw her.
(Whom)
The
woman whom I saw was Ms. Silvy.
http://www.enotes.com/topic/Relative_clause
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/example-adjective-clauses.html