English Using Adjective Clauses, Definition and Example Sentences;
Table of Contents
Adjective Clauses
“Adjective clause” or “relative clause” means a clause that acts as an adjective by qualifying a noun. While adjectives are used before the name they describe, ‘adjective clause‘ comes after the name it defines. For example:
- Today, I saw a blue car which was parked in front of my car.
Here are links related to adjectives;
- Demonstrative Adjectives
- Descriptive Adjectives
- Compound Adjectives
- Opposite Adjectives
- Positive Attitude Adjectives
- Possessive Adjectives
- Quantitative Adjectives
- Degrees of Adjectives
- Comparative and Superlative Adjectives
- Irregular Adjectives
Note 1: Half sentence comes after Who, whom and which; that is, these words decrease the subject or object after them. Note that in some cases there are half sentences.
Note 2: The full sentence comes after where, when and why.
Note 3: Unless there is a comma and preposition on the left; It can be used in place of who, whom, which, when and why. Note that in Adjective clause sentences, that doesn’t come after commas and prepositions.
If we want to use adjective clause in a sentence, we can get correct sentences as a grammer considering the following rules. The main task of the adjective clause sentence is to make our sentences easier. For example:
- I hate Tom. Tom always complain.
Two different sentences can be combined in one sentence thanks to the adjective clause.
- I hate Tom who / that always complain.
Using “who, which, that” we can define the subject and object. Of course, we don’t use them randomly. “Who” is used to describe people, “which” is used to describe animals and all inanimate beings. “That” is our wildcard pronoun that we can use as both “who” and “which”.
Adjective clause comes right after the name it generally describes, but sometimes other words can be entered between the defined name and adjective clause. For example:
- I saw her laptop in the library which was supposed to be under repair.
In this sentence, a place piece has entered between the adjective clause and the name he describes. (in the library) but here the name which is described will be “every laptop”, not “library”.
Adjective Clauses Pronouns
- Who / Whom: If we are a person or a community of people that we will describe when forming a sentence, who or who is used. The only difference of Whom is that it is used in more formal sentences. So in official sentences.
- Whose: “his, her, their etc.” in the Adjective clause sentence If a possessive pronoun like “refers to the name he will describe in the main sentence,” whose “pronoun is used. A name must follow the pronoun “Whose”.
- Which: We use which pronoun to characterize animals or inanimate objects in a sentence. Which pronoun may refer not only to a name preceding him, but also to the entire sentence.
- That: This pronoun can also be called wildcard pronoun. It can be used in place of every pronoun except “whose”. It is not used only after the comma.
- Where: Where the name defined in the Adjective clause statement declares a place, ‘where’ is used. If the place name to be considered is a subject or object rather than an indirect complement, ‘which’ or ‘that’ is used instead of ‘where’. In order to understand whether a place name in English is used as an object / subject or as an indirect complement, it is necessary to ask these items where and what questions. When the name described in the When: Adjective clause clause is a time word such as day, hour or year, ‘when’ is used as an pronoun.
- Why: In general, ‘why’ or ‘that’ can be used after the word reason.
Note: We should be careful about the synchronization between the adjective clause and the main sentence. However, sometimes there may be differences. Adjective clause sentences can be used in two different types:
Defining Adjective Clause
When used in a sentence, it gives us descriptive and necessary information about the name it describes. “Who, whom, that, which, whose, where, when, why” is used. Adjective Clause is not separated from the main sentence by commas.
Non- Defining Adjective Clause
It gives extra information about the name it describes (special name or already defined name) and this information is not required for understanding the sentence. All (who, whom, whose, where, when, which) except “that” can be used. That cannot be used. That doesn’t come after the comma. Adjective clause is separated from the sentence by commas.