Explaining clause scrambles: E4-01W

Explaining the use of adverbial and relative clauses

 

The clause scramble in exercise file P4-01W has two types of clauses in it. Let’s have a look at them from a grammatical point of view.

 

Look at this scramble:

 

D.    we decided to drop in on Paul

although it was very late

who never goes to bed before 2am.

 

The main clause (see E3-03W) is: ‘We decided to drop in on Paul.’ This is complete and understandable on its own, but it is developed or extended by two further clauses: ‘although it was very late’ and ‘who never goes to bed before 2 a.m.’

 

Adverbial clauses

The first of these is an adverbial clause.[1] An adverb describes, or tells us more about a verb, and an adverbial clause does the same:

 

He spoke quickly, although his English was not very good.

 

We have two things to say about spoke: first, that it was done quickly, second that it was not done in very good English. ‘Quickly’ is an adverb and ‘although his English was not very good’ is an adverbial clause.

 

In other words, an adverbial clause is used to tell us something more about the main verb – the one in the main clause. Like this:

 

If you see Grigori, tell him to give me a call.

 

The main verb is ‘tell’. A condition is attached to telling Grigori – that you see him: if you see him, tell him (and if you don’t see him, don’t tell him – for example, don’t send him an e-mail or anything like that.)

 

Relative clauses  

The second clause does not describe a verb but a noun: Paul (this is what we call a proper noun – the name of someone or something: Paul, The Taj Mahal, Spain etc.)

As she got off the bus, Junling noticed a tall man who was wearing a dark overcoat.

Here, we have two things to say about ‘man’ – he was tall, he was wearing a dark overcoat. ‘Tall’ is an adjective and ‘who was wearing a dark overcoat’ is a clause whose function is adjectival – but the name we give to it is ‘relative’ clause, because the name adjectival clause is given to another type of clause.[2]

We will examine relative clauses much more carefully later in this section. For the moment, notice that a relative clause begins with a relative pronoun – for example who, which or whose – and this must come immediately after the noun it is describing or talking about.

We found an antique shop which sold old musical instruments.

Summary

Two of the most widely used clauses in English are the adverbial and the relative. The first gives us detailed information about an action (verb); the second tells us in detail about a person or thing (noun). If you learn how to use them correctly, you will have a good basis for writing complex sentences in English – the type of sentence which 1) shows that you are no longer a beginner, 2) allows you to give detailed descriptions, and 3) makes your writing flow much better.