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In example 3, I enjoyed the apple pie is an independent clause, and that you bought for me is a dependent clause; the sentence is thus complex. In sentence 4, The dog lived in the garden and the cat lived inside the house are both independent clauses; who was smarter is a dependent clause.
Adjective phrases containing complements after the adjective cannot normally be used as attributive adjectives before a noun. Sometimes they are used attributively after the noun , as in a woman proud of being a midwife (where they may be converted into relative clauses: a woman who is proud of being a midwife ), but it is wrong to say * a ...
English adjectives can take clauses, preposition phrases, and noun phrases as complements. Clause complements in adjective phrases can be either finite or nonfinite. Finite clause complements can be declarative (e.g., very pleased that I had bought his book) or interrogative (e.g., not sure whether I want to keep reading).
A clause is often said to be the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. [1] But this semantic idea of a clause leaves out much of English clause syntax. For example, clauses can be questions, [2]: 161 but questions are not propositions. [3] A syntactic description of an English clause is that it is a subject and a ...
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 (complementizer); see That as relativizer.
Important features of natural language syntax such as agreement and reference are not part of the context-free grammar, but the basic recursive structure of sentences, the way in which clauses nest inside other clauses, and the way in which lists of adjectives and adverbs are swallowed by nouns and verbs, is described exactly.
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For example, the following attempt to create a similar example results in an ungrammatical sentence. The theoretical representation of the sentence is given right below, [2] omitting, again, irrelevant details. 6. Bad: John is easy to decide whether to please. 7. John is easy [Op x to decide whether to please x]