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Introduction to Subordinate Clauses

 

Make the Sentence from the Clause, Part 1

Objective: By the end of this lesson, you should understand that subordinate clauses follow most of the same rules as main clauses.

Introduction

Remember:

clause = sentence

One of the most important skills that we can learn is "make the sentence from the clause." That means that whenever we have a subordinate clause, we have a sentence.

Note: There are NO commas in these exercises. For this skill we should be able to complete the exercises successfully WITHOUT looking for commas.

Step 1, Easier: Adverb Clauses

Objective: By the end of this lesson, you should understand that the first word (if, because, although, when, where, so that, etc.) in this type of clause is NOT part of the "sentence from the clause."

Adverb clauses are the easiest ones to understand because the subordinating conjunctions that we use to make an adverb clause are not part of the sentence.

Instructions

  1. Find the subordinate clause.
  2. Make the sentence from the clause.
  3. Notice that we did not use the subordinating conjunction in the "sentence from the clause."

We can see an example in the first question.

Answers

1. Sentence I went to bed because I was sleepy.
Sub Clause because I was sleepy
Sentence from the clause I was sleepy
2. Sentence I study hard so that I can raise my TOEFL score.
Sub Clause  
Sentence from the clause  
3. Sentence I like to listen to jazz when I am studying.
Sub Clause  
Sentence from the clause  
4. Sentence Because I wanted to learn Japanese I took an intensive class at the community college at night.
Sub Clause  
Sentence from the clause  
5. Sentence If you should need a hand I would be more than delighted to help you.
Sub Clause  
Sentence from the clause  
6. Sentence After I got home from school I sat down in front of the TV and didn't think about TOEFL for the rest of the night.
Sub Clause  
Sentence from the clause  
7. Sentence My language skills while they are getting better every day could still stand improvement.
Sub Clause  
Sentence from the clause  

Answers

Step 2, Medium: Adjective Clauses

Objective: By the end of this lesson, you should understand that the first word (that, who, whom, which, where, when, etc.) in these clauses IS part of the "sentence from the clause."

Adjective clauses are a little bit harder than adverb clauses because the first word has two functions:

The Two Functions of a Relative Pronoun

  1. first, the first word in the clause (that, which, who, whom, when, where, etc.) is a connector
  2. second, the subordinating conjunction is also a pronoun--that means it replaces another noun.

We just learned that the subordinating conjunction in an adjective clause replaces another noun. That noun has a special name--it is called the head noun.

Instructions

  1. Find the subordinate clause.
  2. Find the head noun. We MUST use the head noun in the "sentence from the clause."
  3. Find the first word (the relative pronoun).
  4. Make the sentence from the clause.
  5. We must make sure that the head noun is in our new sentence.
  6. We should realize that the relative pronoun does NOT include a determiner. In other words, sometimes we will have to add the, a, my, her, etc.
  7. We should notice that the first word (the relative pronoun) = the head noun.
  8. We should notice that we need to use the first word (the relative pronoun) in the "sentence from  the clause."

We can see an example in the first question.

Answers

8. Sentence The car that you bought is really nice.
Sub Clause that you bought
Head Noun car
Sentence from the clause you bought the car
9. Sentence I bought the book that you told me about.
Sub Clause  
Head Noun  
Sentence from the clause  
10. Sentence The woman whom we met was very helpful.
Sub Clause  
Head Noun  
Sentence from the clause  
11. Sentence The city that I am from is Kyoto.
Sub Clause
Head Noun  
Sentence from the clause  
12. Sentence The store that we went to had really good prices on clothes.
Sub Clause  
Head Noun  
Sentence from the clause  
13. Sentence People who study hard and go to school every day usually get better grades.
Sub Clause  
Head Noun  
Sentence from the clause  
14. Sentence The movie that we were talking about was too long and boring for me.
Sub Clause  
Head Noun  
Sentence from the clause  

Answers

Step 3, Harder: Noun Clauses

Objective: By the end of this lesson, we should realize that the first word in these clauses is SOMETIMES part of the "sentence from the clause" and sometimes NOT part of the "sentence from the clause."

Noun clauses are a little bit harder than adjective clauses because the subordinating conjunction sometimes has only one function (it only joins two clauses) and sometimes the subordinating conjunction has two functions (it joins two clauses and is also a pronoun). In other words, sometimes the subordinating conjunction only connects, sometimes it connects and replaces another noun.

Instructions

  1. Find the subordinate clause.
  2. Look at the first word. Decide whether it is a subordinating conjunction or a relative pronoun.
  3. Make the sentence from the clause.
  4. As we are doing this exercise, we should notice that the first word that is NOT a relative pronoun, but that the first word what IS a relative pronoun.

 

Answers

 

15. Sentence I know that you are smart.
Sub Clause  
SC or RP?  
Sentence from the clause  
16. Sentence What you said was pretty funny.
Sub Clause  
SC or RP?  
Sentence from the clause  
17. Sentence I need to know which car you want to buy.
Sub Clause  
SC or RP?  
Sentence from the clause  
18. Sentence I know when you left last night.
Sub Clause  
SC or RP?  
Sentence from the clause  
19. Sentence I know how many languages you speak.
Sub Clause  
SC or RP?  
Sentence from the clause  
20. Sentence I was really surprised by what she said.
Sub Clause  
SC or RP?
Sentence from the clause
21. Sentence How much money your friends make should not be important to the friendship.
Sub Clause
SC or RP?  
Sentence from the clause

 

Answers

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