Languages & Linguistics
Adjectival Clause
An adjectival clause is a group of words that functions as an adjective within a sentence. It provides additional information about a noun or pronoun. Adjectival clauses often begin with relative pronouns such as "who," "which," or "that," and they help to add descriptive details to the noun they modify.
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6 Key excerpts on "Adjectival Clause"
- Nancy M. Sullivan(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
138 Adjective, Adverb, and Noun Clauses Adjective Clauses An adjective clause is a dependent clause that, like other adjectives, modifies a noun or a pronoun. The adjective clause cannot function alone because it is a dependent clause (not a complete thought). In terms of placement, an adjective clause follows the noun phrase (NP) that it modifies. In this section, we will first become acquainted with relative pronouns, a specific set of pronouns that begin adjective clauses. Then we will look at the punctuation of adjective clauses and some “quirks” associated with them. Relative Pronouns An adjective clause most often begins with a relative pronoun: who, whom, whose, that, or which. The antecedent of the relative pronoun is the noun phrase that the pronoun refers to. Here are some examples of adjective clauses (underlined, with the relative pronoun in parentheses). An arrow points to the noun that the adjective clause modifies (which is the antecedent of the relative pronoun): Indo-European, (which) is an ancient family of languages, evolved from European and Asian languages. In the first century, the British Isles were invaded by Romans, (who) brought their Latin language with them. The West Germanic tribes (that) came to the British Isles in the fifth century spoke dialects (that) became “Old English.” The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, (who) made up the West Germanic tribes, left their mark on modern-day English. We would not be able to understand Old English, (which) is also called Anglo-Saxon. An adjective clause is also referred to as a relative clause in some texts because it begins with a relative pronoun. You choose the relative pronoun based on whether the pronoun refers to a human or nonhuman and whether it fills subject, object, or possessive slots in the adjective clause. “Who” and “whom” are used for humans, “which” for nonhumans, and “whose” for the possessive form.
eBook - PDFModern Written Arabic
A Comprehensive Grammar
- El Said Badawi, Michael Carter, Adrian Gully(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
549 Chapter 5 Adjectival and relative clauses 5.0 General principles ( C3:147) In the traditional Arab analysis Adjectival Clauses qualifying indefinite nouns are taxonomically the same as adjectives, and both are termed L ifa ‘adjective’ (cf. 2.1 ), while clauses qualifying definite nouns are treated as adjuncts and thus termed L ila ‘adjunct’, literally ‘attachment’. Both are ‘Adjectival Clauses’ and will be so referred to hereafter, but when appropri-ate they will also be termed more generally ‘relative clauses’. This will be necessary when dealing with the third category of relatives, those introduced by m A ‘that which’ and man ‘he who’ which are exclusively nominal, a function which is shared by the syndetic relatives (‘adjunct’), which may be either adjectival or nominal. The feature which determines the syntactic behaviour of both types of adjectival relative is definiteness, which combines with a/syndesis to produce the following structures (‘head’ will be used throughout in preference to ‘antecedent’ in this chapter): + syndetic clause = relative structure: jalasa l-rajulu lla RC yata K adda S u ‘the man who is talking sat’ + asyndetic clause = circumstantial qualifier (see 7.3 ): jalasa l-rajulu yata K adda S u ‘the man sat talking ’ 550 5 Adjectival and relative clauses + asyndetic clause = either relative or circumstantial qualifier: jalasa rajulun yata K adda S u either ‘a man who is talking sat’ or (more commonly) ‘a man sat talking ’, (cf. 7.3.1 ) + syndetic clause, is empty, and there is no structure of the type: * jalasa rajulun-i lla RC yata K adda S u ‘a man, the one who talked, sat’ as a definite adjunct clause cannot qualify an indefinite head (even if such a structure may appear possible in a translation).
No longer available |Learn more- Edwin C. Woolley(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Barnes & Noble(Publisher)
For other examples see under Rule 336. Relative clauses are often called adjective clauses. Relative pronoun. The words that, who, what, which, whoever, whatever, and whichever, when they are used as substantives and in such a way that the clauses in which they stand are made relative clauses (q.v.), are called relative pronouns. The words what, which, whatever, and whichever, when they are used as adjectives and in such a way that the clauses in which they stand are made relative clauses, are called relative adjectives. Restrictive. See Sections 334, 252. Rhetorical. Pertaining to the impression conveyed by discourse to the reader's or hearer's mind. Distinguished from grammatical, which means pertaining merely to the way discourse is put together, without reference to its effect on the mind. Rhetorical appositive. See Rule 383. Sentence. A sentence is (1) a complete independent predication, actual or virtual; or (2) two or more such predications written with such punctuation and capitalization, or spoken with such slight pauses between them, as will indicate that they are to be taken as a rhetorical unit. All complete independent predications, actual or virtual, are sentences. Many sentences, however, are not single complete independent predications, but groups of such predications
eBook - PDF- Martin J. Endley(Author)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Information Age Publishing(Publisher)
Thus, after one particular class, one of my colleagues might say the follow- ing to me: Adjectives and Adverbs in Linguistic Perspective 93 (29) The students were being very Korean today. In one sense, this is an odd thing to say. We do not normally think of “Korean” as a property that is subject to change. Surely one either is Korean or one is not. When used in this way, however, the adjective is being treated as if it were a dynamic property, something that is changeable. Given an appropriate context, it would not be difficult to make sense of an utterance like (29). If I heard someone say this, I would understand it to mean that the students had been displaying many of the characteristics we often as- sociate with Korean students, but to a greater degree than normal. (I will leave you to decide what those characteristics are!) Adjectives as Attributive and Restrictive One basic function that adjectives perform is to attribute some property to an entity identified by a noun. Consider a noun phrase such as the students. Of course, it is certainly possible to use this without an adjective. However, speakers will very often want to add something more. For example: (30) a. The happy students. b. The thoughtful, witty students. c. The intelligent, diligent, attentive students. The adjectives happy, thoughtful, diligent, and so on provide additional information about the students. One effect of this is to restrict the range of possible items to which the entire NP (including the adjective) can apply. To give another example, the expression All the students in the class includes everyone in the room; however, All the smiling students in the class restricts the reference to only some students (those who happen to be smiling). Adding further adjectives restricts the reference still further: All the smiling, attentive students. You get the idea. By attributing some property to the noun, adjectives help to establish the reference of the noun more precisely.
eBook - PDFLinguistic Analysis
From Data to Theory
- Annarita Puglielli, Mara Frascarelli(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
5.5.1. The internal syntax of adverbial clauses In the literature, the subordinating element of an adverbial clause is usually ascribed to the category of complementizers (i.e. C° heads; see Grimshaw Adverbial modification 202 1991, Lasnik & Saito 1992, Vikner 1994). However, cross-linguistic data show that this type of introductory element should not be considered to be equivalent to an invariable functional head as a complementizer (e.g. English that, Italian che, German dass, etc.) but as an element having nominal properties. Let us now present some data on time and manner adverbial clauses from typologically different languages, starting with Somali, an inflecting and partly polysynthetic language (from Frascarelli & Puglielli 2005a): (56) a. Gaba-rtii oo [mar-kaas gur-iga gashay] girl-DET.AN ASSOC time-DEM house-DET enter.PST.RED baan arkay. (SOMALI) FM.SCL.1SG see.PST.1SG ‘I saw the girl after she had walked into her house.’ b. [In-t-aad shaqeemaysó] buug baan part-DET-PRO.2SG work.PROG.DEP book FM.SCL.1SG akhrinayaa. read.PROG.1SG ‘While you are working, I am going to read a book.’ c. [Goorta qorra-xdu dhacdó] imaw. momentDET sun-DET.NOM set.DEP come.IMP.2SG ‘Come when the sun sets.’ d. [Si-da Ahmed uu doonayó] erey-ga u way-DET Ahmed SCL.3SGM want.PROG.DEP word-DET to qor. write.IMP.2SG ‘Write the word the way Ahmed wants.’ First of all, it should be noted that the introductory element of subordinate clauses (corresponding to English conjunctions after, when, while and the way [that]) is a noun, as it can be modified by a DET or a DEM and can be used in sentences with a subject or object function. Such nouns are usually generic (‘time’, ‘moment’, ‘manner’, etc.); however, a certain degree of subcategorization can be observed, relating to a specific type of (adverbial) temporal modification: Mar for posteriority, in and goor for simultaneity (the former with a durative aspect, the latter with a punctual one).
eBook - PDFSyntactic Analysis and Description
A Constructional Approach
- David Lockwood(Author)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- Continuum(Publisher)
In thes two languages, it is a part of the Indo-European heritage, and in languages of other fami lies may or may not occur. In languages such as Chinese and Thai, which have no verb; morphology, such a distinction would be out of the question. In other languages, a exemplified by the Turkish material just discussed, there may be clausoids which occur in plac of subordinate clauses of at least some kinds rather than as alternatives to them. With respec to the Qualifier function in a noun phrase where we can find relative clauses in English, we ca divide languages into those that use relative clauses only (Chinese), clausoidal phrases onl (Turkish) and both (English, Old Church Slavic). Languages also differ with respect to th position of these adjuncts relative to the Head (compare the pre-head participial phrases c Turkish with their post-head counterparts in English), and with respect to the grammatics functions involved in the adjunct clauses or clausoids. This latter point can be illustrated wit English data, as in Table 14.18. Table 14.18 Roles associated with types of nominal qualifying clauses and participial clausoids in English 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. I see the dog that is biting Sally. I see the dog which is biting Sally. I see the dog biting Sally. I see the woman [that] the dog bit. I see the woman whom the dog bit. I see the woman bitten by the dog. I see the dog [that] the woman gave the toy to. I see the dog which the woman gave the toy to. I see the dog given the toy by the woman. I see the pony [that] Sally rode on. I see the pony which Sally rode on. I see the pony ridden on by Sally. I see the dog that our cat is bigger than. I see the dog which our cat is bigger than. I see the lamb whose fleece is white as snow. SUBJECT (ACTIVE) DIRECT OBJECT (PASSIVE) INDIRECT OBJECT (PASSIVE) AXIS LOC (PASSIVE) AXIScoMp POSSESSOR Subordinate clauses and clausoidal phrases 301 302 Syntactic analysis and description Exercises A. Interpretation problems 1.
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