The only way to reliably identify adjectival prepositional phrases is by testing the prepositional phrase by third-person pronoun substitution.. When a prepositional phrase along with t
Trang 13 The senator from California expressed her concern about the problem.
4 A reporter in China broke the story about the peace talks
5 The door in the dining room really needs a new coat of paint
6 They had a big victory despite all the odds
7 A new painting by the English painter Turner has just been discovered
8 I had no illusions about my chances
9 The witness to the crime refused to testify
10 We couldn’t understand his motive for lying
11 The rim of the cup was chipped
12 It was no time for indecision
13 The waiting period in the clinic is nearly an hour
14 It seemed like we visited every old church in the city
15 The period just after sunset is the most dangerous time to drive
It is not very diffi cult to recognize prepositional phrases It is more diffi cult to fi gure out whether they are adjectival (noun modifi ers) or adverbial (modifi ers of verbs and other adverbs)
Adjectival and adverbial prepositional phrases look exactly alike For example, compare the
prepositional phrase with friends in the following sentences:
We had a nice dinner last night with friends.
A nice dinner with friends is always a great pleasure.
In the fi rst sentence, with friends is adverbial, but in the second sentence, with friends is adjectival,
modifying the noun dinner The only way to reliably identify adjectival prepositional phrases is
by testing the prepositional phrase by third-person pronoun substitution When a prepositional
phrase (along with the noun) can be replaced by a third-person pronoun, that phrase must be a
noun modifi er Likewise, when a prepositional phrase cannot be replaced by a third-person
pro-noun, that prepositional phrase is adverbial Here is the third-person pronoun replacement test
applied to the two example sentences given above:
it
We had a nice dinner last night with friends.
It
A nice dinner with friends is always a great pleasure.
Trang 2As you can see, the third-person pronoun substitution test shows that the prepositional phrase
is not adjectival in the fi rst sentence because it is outside the boundaries of the third-person
pronoun substitution In the second sentence, however, the the third-person pronoun it can be
substituted for the noun and prepositional phrase, proving the prepositional phrase is part of the
noun phrase and thus a noun modifi er
Exercise 4.3
Underline all the prepositional phrases in the following sentences Above each prepositional
phrase write Adj if it is adjectival or Adv if it is adverbial If it is adjectival, confi rm your answer
by using the third-person pronoun substitution test
In the last quarter, we expect to see an improvement in our earnings.
In the last quarter, we expect to see it.
1 The road by our house is being paved
2 The frozen chickens in the supermarket are not very good
3 Breakfast will be served in the main dining room
4 Their discovery of an error has caused the company to restate its earnings
5 A restaurant in our neighborhood serves really good Chinese food
6 After much debate, we decided to consult a specialist in toxic waste removal
7 We fi nally found the book we wanted online
8 The star of the show was a young singer from Australia
9 Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense in court
10 Visitors from China are always welcome in our company
11 The fl oor in the cabin was rough, unfi nished wood
12 The popularity of his book was a big factor
13 During the night, there was a fi re that caused some damage
14 He has the heart of a lion and the brain of a jellyfi sh
15 At lunchtime, I bought a new coat at the mall
Trang 3Adjective (relative) clauses
Adjective clauses (also known as relative clauses) have their own internal subject-verb agreement
structure (like independent clauses), but unlike independent clauses, adjectives clauses can never
stand alone as independent sentences Adjective clauses are thus a type of dependent clause
Adjective clauses are always attached to the nouns that they modify Here are some examples with
the noun being modifi ed underlined and the adjective clause in italics:
The book that I need is not in the library.
I answered all of the questions that I could.
The editorial, which had appeared in the Times, was the talk of the town.
The man who introduced the speaker is the vice-president of the society.
Alice Johnson, who is the head of personnel, will be at the interview.
The students whom I was talking about earlier are all in their fi rst year here.
We interviewed the parents whose children participated in the study.
Did you fi nd a place where we can park overnight?
We need to pick a time when we can all meet.
We can always identify adjective clauses by the third-person pronoun replacement test
Adjective clauses are the only type of dependent clause that will be inside the boundaries of the
third-person pronoun substitution Here is the third-person pronoun test applied to all of the
above examples of adjective clauses:
The book that I need is not in the library.
It is not in the library.
I answered all of the questions that I could.
I answered all of them.
The editorial, which had appeared in the Times, was the talk of the town.
It was the talk of the town.
The man who introduced the speaker is the vice-president of the society.
He is the vice-president of the society.
Alice Johnson, who is the head of personnel, will be at the interview.
She will be at the interview.
The students whom I was talking about earlier are all in their fi rst year here.
They are all in their fi rst year here.
Trang 4We interviewed the parents whose children participated in the study.
We interviewed them.
Did you fi nd a place where we can park overnight?
Did you fi nd it?
We need to pick a time when we can all meet.
We need to pick it.
Exercise 4.4
Underline the adjective clauses in the following sentences Confi rm your answer by using the
third-person pronoun replacement test
The opera that we saw was sung in Russian.
It was sung in Russian.
1 We are going to refi nance the mortgage that we have on our house
2 Most of the staff who work at my offi ce will be attending the offi ce party
3 The place where the pipe connects to the water line is badly corroded
4 We talked to the subjects whom we had previously identifi ed
5 Ralph, whom you met on your last trip here, will take you around
6 They examined the building where the meetings would be held
7 That week was a period when everything seemed to go wrong
8 They asked us to redo the tests that we had done earlier
9 It was a memorial to the pioneers who fi rst settled this area
10 We took them to the laboratory, which is in the basement
11 They took pictures of the river where the bridge had washed out
12 I didn’t know the person whom they were discussing
13 We had an adventure that we certainly had not planned on
14 My parents, who live in a small town, always enjoy visiting the city
15 The manager, whom we had contacted earlier, approved our check
16 Some fans whose enthusiasm knew no limits climbed up on stage
Trang 517 Berlin, which had been a divided city, is now open to everyone.
18 Our friends went to a museum where there was free admission on Mondays
19 That was the moment when I knew we were in big trouble
20 The yogurt, which had been in our refrigerator for months, had to be thrown out
The internal structure of adjective clauses
Virtually all languages have adjective clauses The internal structure of adjective clauses in
Eng-lish, however, is unusually complicated All adjective clauses must begin with a special pronoun
called a relative pronoun (The term relative pronoun refers to the fact that these pronouns are
used only in forming relative clauses.) The choice of which relative pronoun to use is governed by
two factors: (1) the role of the relative pronoun inside its own adjective clause (i.e., whether the
relative pronoun is a subject, object, possessive, adverb of space, or adverb of time), and (2) the
nature of the noun that the adjective clause modifi es This noun is known as the antecedent of
the relative pronoun We will examine both of these factors in more detail
Role of the relative pronoun inside its own clause We choose between who, whom, and whose
depending on the role the relative pronoun plays If the relative pronoun plays the role of subject,
we must use who If the relative pronoun plays the role of object, we must use whom (The m in
whom is historically the same object marker as in him and them.) If the relative pronoun is
posses-sive, we must use whose In the following examples the relative pronoun is in italics and the entire
adjective clause is underlined
Relative pronoun plays the role of subject
He is a person who will always do the right thing.
In this sentence, who is the subject of the verb do.
Please give your dues to Ms Walker, who is the treasurer of the organization.
Here who is the subject of the verb is.
The musicians who played for us today are all from local schools.
In this sentence, who is the subject of the verb played.
Relative pronoun plays the role of object
He is a person whom I have always admired.
Trang 6In this sentence, whom is the object of the verb admired—as in “I have always admired him.”
Please give your dues to Ms Walker, whom you all met earlier.
Here whom is the object of the verb met—as in “We all met Ms Walker earlier.”
The musicians, whom we selected from local schools, will play for us today.
Whom is the object of the verb selected—as in “We selected the musicians earlier.”
Relative pronoun as possessive
Mr Smith, whose father founded the company, has worked here many years.
In this sentence, whose Mr Smith’s.
The companies whose employees are full time have done better.
Here whose the companies’ employees.
Those bridges whose supports were damaged in the flood have been closed.
Here whose those bridges’.
Exercise 4.5
The adjective clauses in the following sentences have been underlined Replace the word(s) in
parentheses with the appropriate relative pronoun
whom The actor (the actor) I met last year is now starring in a new movie
1 Anybody (anybody) wants to leave now may do so
2 The person (the person) you met at the reception is Paul Kennedy
3 Jason Grant, (Jason Grant’s) daughter is a friend of Susan’s, teaches at MIT
4 Did you ever hear from the client (the client) left a message for you yesterday?
5 The fl ower (the flower’s) name I couldn’t recall is a hydrangea
6 This is my husband (my husband) I don’t think you have met before
7 We need to replace the window (the window’s) glass was broken in the storm
Trang 78 The club’s new president, (the president) has been here forever, is very popular.
9 All the employees (the employees) were hoping for a raise will be disappointed
10 The new secretary (the secretary’s) name I can never remember left a message
11 The drivers (the drivers) the company had hired were all new to the area
12 We went back to the waiter (the waiter) had waited on us earlier
13 I looked up the lawyer (the lawyer) you recommended
14 I looked up the lawyer (the lawyer) wrote the contract
15 I looked up the lawyer (the lawyer’s) presentation we all liked
The nature of the noun that the relative clause modifi es The relative pronoun always
immedi-ately follows the noun that relative pronoun refers to This noun is called the antecedent of the
relative pronoun For example, look at the following sentence:
We need to talk about the courses that you are going to take next term.
The antecedent of the relative pronoun that is the noun courses Even when the relative pronoun
is a possessive, the possessive must refer to the possessive form of the antecedent noun For
example, in the following sentence
The organization whose offices you visited was written up in a magazine.
Whose refers to the possessive form of the antecedent noun organization, that is, you visited the
organization’s offi ces.
The nature of the antecedent also exerts control over which relative pronoun we use
• If the antecedent is human, we must use who, whom, or whose as the relative pronoun
(The choice among who, whom, and whose is governed by the role of the relative pronoun inside
the adjective clause.)
• If the antecedent is not human, we must use that or which as the relative pronoun (We will discuss the distinction between that and which in great detail later in this chapter For now,
we will use that in all of our examples because the distinction between that and which is
irrel-evant to our discussion of how relative clauses are formed.)
• If the antecedent is a noun that refers to space (a spatial noun), we use where as the
rela-tive pronoun
• If the antecedent is a noun that refers to time (a temporal noun), we use when as the rela-tive pronoun (We can also use that.)