SUBORDINATE CLAUSES OF SECONDARY NOMINAL POSITION

They include attributive clauses of various syntactic features.

 

Limiting particularizing attributive clauses usually define what person or what thing we are speaking about. For ex: we again came to the place where we had made a fire.

Limiting classifying attributive clauses restrict the meanings of the anticipnents referring them to certain classes of things or persons.For ex: I don’t like people who smoke too much. I Don’t like clothes that wears too long.

The main clause is not separated from the particularizing and classifying attributive subordinate clauses by a coma. Non-limiting descriptive attributive subordinate clauses are usually separated by comas and they give an additional information about the anticitnents. For ex:I met my bosom friend, who was surprised to see me at the theatre. Such (descriptive attributive ) subordinate clauses can be easily dropped out without destroying the meaning of the principal clause. In such clauses the subordinators which, who, cannot be replaced by THAT or omitted.

Non-limiting continuation attributive clauses are usually introduced by the relative pronoun “WHICH” and very seldom by “WHO”. This clause is attributive only in for, but in meaning it expresses a new predicative event and that is why it is semantically a coordinate clause not a subordinate one; and usually continuative clauses refer to the whole principal clause but not to an anticitnent. A complex sentence with such subordinate clauses can be easily transformed into compound sentences. For ex: She let me use her i-phone, which was very kind of her. – she let me use her i-phone and that was very kind of her.

Appositive nominal clauses are closer to restrictive attributive clauses. The characteristic anticitnents of such clauses are abstract nouns like: fact, idea, question, plan, suggestion, news, information etc. For ex:The news that she had got a second Mercedes shocked everyone.

The characteristic anticitents of adverbial appositive clauses expressing nounal relations are abstract names expressing adverbial relations such as time, moment, place, condition, purpose, etc.

Bloch : we saw him at the moment he was opening the door of his cadellac.

She revealed the secret to her on the condition that she shouldn’t let it go any further.

Appositive clauses of pronominal relation refer to anticintents expressed by indefinite and demonstrative pronouns. For ex: I couldn’t agree with all that she was saying in her irritation. 2. I know something that will drive you mad.

Appositive clauses of anticipatory relation are used in constructions with the anticipatory pronoun “IT”. They fall into subjective and objective types. For ex: Subjective – It will be silly of her if she doesn’t come in time. Objective: I find it silly of her if she doesn’t come in time.