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The distinction between restrictive, or integrated, relative clauses and non-restrictive, or supplementary, relative clauses in English is made both in speaking (through prosody), and in writing (through punctuation): a non-restrictive relative clause is surrounded by pauses in speech and usually by commas in writing, whereas a restrictive ...
A non-restrictive relative clause may have a whole sentence as its antecedent rather than a specific noun phrase; for example: The cat was allowed on the bed, which annoyed the dog . Here, which refers not to the bed or the cat but to the entire proposition expressed in the main clause, namely the situation of the cat being allowed on the bed.
English does not generally mark modifiers for restrictiveness, with the exception of relative clauses: non-restrictive ones are set off in speech through intonation (with a pause beforehand and an uninterrupted melody [dubious – discuss]) and in writing by using commas, whereas restrictive clauses are not.
In the second example, the non-restrictive relative clause who have never known your family describes you in the independent clause, You see them standing around you. A noun clause is a dependent clause that functions like a noun. A noun clause may function as the subject of a clause, a predicate nominative, an object or an appositive.
A clause typically contains a subject (a noun phrase) and a predicate (a verb phrase in the terminology used above; that is, a verb together with its objects and complements). A dependent clause also normally contains a subordinating conjunction (or in the case of relative clauses, a relative pronoun, or phrase containing one).
The same phrase can be a restrictive appositive in one context and a non-restrictive appositive in another: My brother P Nathan A is here. – Restrictive: I have several brothers, and the one named Nathan is here. My brother P, Nathan A, is here. – Non-restrictive: I have only one brother and, as an aside, his name is Nathan.
Regular relative clauses are a class of dependent clause (or "subordinate clause") [1] that usually modifies a noun. [2] [3] They are typically introduced by one of the relative pronouns who, whom, whose, what, or which—and, in English, by the word that, [1] which may be analyzed either as a relative pronoun or as a relativizer; see That as relativizer.
Both wh-relativizers and the that-relativizer can be used to introduce restrictive relative clauses. Nonrestrictive relative clauses add extraneous information that is not vital for the listener or reader's understanding of which aforementioned noun is being referenced; or in other words, which noun is the nominal antecedent.