English Grammar Drills - Mark Lester 2009
Adjective clauses in casual conversation
4 Post-Noun Modifiers
Part 1 Noun Phrases
The description of adjective clauses that we have given to this point is an accurate picture of formal, written English. In casual conversation, however, adjective clauses are simplified in two different ways: who and whom may be replaced by that, and relative pronouns that play the role of objects may be deleted.
Who and whom replaced by that
The relative pronouns who and whom are often replaced by that. For example, in written English, you might see this more formal sentence:
The reporter who covered the story has received numerous journalism awards.
In conversation, you would be more likely to hear this:
The reporter that covered the story has received numerous journalism awards.
The relative pronoun whom is nearly always replaced by that in conversation. For example:
Written: The people whom we met with were all pretty upset.
Conversation: The people that we met with were all pretty upset.
Written: All the players whom the team nominated were selected for the all-star team.
Conversation: All the players that the team nominated were selected for the all star team.
Written: Someone whom you know told me all about what happened.
Conversation: Someone that you know told me all about what happened.
However, we do not use that instead of who or whom if the antecedent is a proper noun. For example, we would say this:
My Aunt Mary, whom you saw at the reception, asked about you.
rather than this:
X My Aunt Mary, that you saw at the reception, asked about you.
However, if we used the common noun aunt, then we would be likely to use that in conversation:
The aunt that you saw at the reception asked about you.
Exercise 4.8
All of the following sentences are written in an informal, conversational style. Rewrite the sentences in a more formal style by changing that to who and whom where appropriate. If no change is necessary, write OK above that.
1. We certainly owe the staff that worked on the project a big thanks.
2. It was all the proof that we needed.
3. We deserve the politicians that we elect to office.
4. Most Americans think the people that live in Texas are a little strange.
5. The few pedestrians that we saw out were all dressed in heavy jackets.
6. We have no accurate record of all the sales that we made in July.
7. The crowds that had filled the streets earlier had all disappeared.
8. We almost never heard the children that she was taking care of.
9. The committee arranged meetings with all the candidates that they wanted to interview.
10. I phoned all the people that were on my list.
11. The members that wanted to renew had to fill out a registration form.
12. They identified all the voters that we thought were most likely to actually turn out.
13. The academics that had studied the issue were in near unanimous agreement.
14. None of us like the alternatives that we were given.
15. Even the few treasury officers that would speak on the record were noncommittal.
Relative pronouns deleted
Relative pronouns that play the role of objects are often deleted. Here are some examples of deleted relative pronouns playing the role of objects:
You will notice that Americans in casual conversation almost always prefer to avoid the relative pronoun whom. They will either replace it with that or delete it entirely. For example, you are much more likely to hear this:
The people that I met in Spain were very friendly.
or this (where — = a deleted relative pronoun):
The people — I met in Spain were very friendly.
rather than this:
The people whom I met in Spain were very friendly.
Another reason Americans avoid both who and whom is that it is hard to determine which of these words to use. Using that or no relative pronoun at all nicely avoids having to make the tricky grammatical choice between who and whom in the quick give-and-take of conversation.
Exercise 4.9
All of the following sentences contain at least one adjective clause. Underline all the adjective clauses. Cross out the relative pronouns that can be deleted (including that). If the relative pronoun cannot be deleted, write OK above it.
1. I like authors who create a strong sense of place in their books.
2. The movie stars that we have today are not the role models that movie stars used to be.
3. “Yellow Dog” is a political term used to describe a Democrat who would vote for a yellow dog before he would vote for a Republican.
4. You should take a jacket that you can wear if it gets cold.
5. They were the players whom the press identified as taking payoffs.
6. I didn’t know any of the girls who were at the party.
7. They listed the names of those students that had passed their final exams.
8. The reporters interviewed the policemen who had arrived at the scene first.
9. Could we talk to the boys that we saw fishing off the pier?
10. The players whom we interviewed were very unhappy with the officials who refereed the game.
11. He asked the buyers who had already made a payment if they would accept a refund.
12. The receptionist that we talked to told us to take a seat.
13. Next, we had to clean all the fish that we had caught.
14. The people who lived nearby all began to drift away.
15. The people that the speaker had named all stood up and received a round of applause.
The deletion of relative pronouns that play the role of object in their own clauses makes relative clauses much more difficult for nonnative speakers to recognize because the relative pronoun, the flag word that marks the beginning of an adjective clause, is no longer there. The following exercise will give you practice in identifying adjective clauses when the relative pronoun has been deleted.
Exercise 4.10
All of the following sentences contain at least one adjective clause with the relative pronoun deleted. Underline the adjective clause and restore an appropriate relative pronoun.
The equipment you ordered last week has just arrived.
The equipment that you ordered last week has just arrived.
1. The Shakespearean characters we all know are either villains or lovers.
2. The police arrested the demonstrators they had photographed the day before.
3. He defeated every opponent at chess he had faced.
4. All the tourists we saw at the beach were badly sunburned.
5. The planets they discussed during the lecture all orbited distant suns.
6. We had to return because the horse I was riding pulled up lame after half an hour.
7. We all had to approve the music they had picked for the wedding ceremony.
8. The performers we saw at the Chinese opera were as much acrobats as they were singers.
9. The tune they played during intermission kept running through my mind all night.
10. Lee is a person everyone likes at first meeting.
11. An associate I had never met before took me into the conference room.
12. The meeting was a total disaster we should have seen coming.
13. The flight to Baltimore I had reservations for was cancelled, so I was out of luck.
14. The Christmas I remember best was when I was eight years old.
15. The artists we admire the most now are the French Impressionists.
16. The babysitter we had hired just called to say she couldn’t make it.
17. The defeat Thomas Dewey suffered at the hand of Truman in 1948 is the most famous upset in American political history.
18. It was not the retirement we had planned for ourselves.
19. The type of cowboys we saw in the old movies never existed in reality.
20. The jury was not persuaded by the hypothetical arguments the defense put forward.
Restrictive and nonrestrictive adjective clauses
All adjective clauses modify the nouns that they follow (their antecedents). However, not all adjective clauses are equal. Some adjective clauses significantly restrict or limit the meaning of the nouns they modify. Accordingly, these are called restrictive adjective clauses. Other adjective clauses, called nonrestrictive adjective clauses, do not affect the meaning of the nouns they modify at all. They merely offer additional information about an already defined noun. Put in other terms, the difference between restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses is the difference between essential, defining information (restrictive) and nonessential, supplementary information (nonrestrictive).
Here are examples of restrictive and nonrestrictive adjective clauses. Carefully compare how the adjective clause relates to the noun it modifies. The adjective clauses are underlined, and the relative pronouns are in italics:
Restrictive: The house that is on the corner of Elm and 17th Street is for sale.
Nonrestrictive: Our house, which is on the corner of Elm and 17th Street, is for sale.
If we delete the restrictive adjective clause from the first sentence, we get a new sentence:
The house is for sale.
In this new sentence, we have no way of knowing which house is for sale. In that sense, the revised sentence no longer means the same thing at all as the original sentence.
However, when we delete the nonrestrictive adjective from the second example, the basic meaning of the original sentence remains unchanged:
Our house is for sale.
Obviously, when we delete the nonrestrictive adjective clause, we lose the information that the clause contained, namely the exact location of our house. Nevertheless, the basic meaning of the main sentence is unchanged: we are selling our house. Our house is still our house no matter where it is located, and we are still selling it.
Here are some more examples of pairs of restrictive and nonrestrictive adjective clauses:
Restrictive: The doctor who operated on my knee is an orthopedic specialist.
Nonrestrictive: Dr. Johnson, who operated on my knee, is an orthopedic specialist.
Restrictive: The plumber whom we had before has moved away.
Nonrestrictive: Artie Brown, whom we had hired before, has moved away.
Restrictive: The key that unlocks the supply cabinet is in my desk.
Nonrestrictive: The key to the supply cabinet, which I gave you yesterday, should have been returned to me when you were finished.
From these three pairs of examples we can see two important characteristics of restrictive and nonrestrictive adjective clauses:
1. By far the most important difference between them is the use of commas. Restrictive adjective clauses are never set off with commas. Nonrestrictive adjective clauses are always set off with commas. The difference in comma use is the only thing that absolutely defines which adjective clauses are restrictive and which are nonrestrictive. This difference in comma use cannot be overemphasized.
It is helpful to think of the restrictive modifier as part of the meaning of the antecedent noun. Since the restrictive modifier is part of the meaning of the noun, the restrictive modifier can never be separated from that noun by commas. Conversely, the pair of commas around a nonrestrictive clause signal that the adjective clause is only loosely attached to the noun it modifies. Nonrestrictive clauses are optional modifiers—they can be deleted without changing the basic meaning of the nouns they modify.
2. The internal grammatical structures of restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses are identical except (according to some writers) for the choice of whether to use that or which as the relative pronoun. Some authorities (mostly authors of technical writing books) strongly advise that we use that in restrictive clauses and which in nonrestrictive clauses. Notice that the two examples above have followed this convention: the restrictive clause uses that and the nonrestrictive clause uses which.
In actual fact, the behavior of native speakers is more complicated. It is indeed true that native speakers use which in nonrestrictive clauses. Using that in nonrestrictive clauses is ungrammatical. For example:
Nonrestrictive: X Our house, that is on the corner of Elm and 17th Street, is for sale.
The problem is that native speakers freely interchange that and which in restrictive clauses in all but the most formal situations. For example:
Restrictive: The shirt that you bought for me has lost a button
Restrictive: The shirt which you bought for me has lost a button.
Restrictive: We gave the tickets to the people that were already in line.
Restrictive: We gave the tickets to the people which were already in line.
Restrictive: They reviewed the instructions that they had been given.
Restrictive: They reviewed the instructions which they had been given.
Restrictive: The car that had just passed us suddenly spun on the ice.
Restrictive: The car which had just passed us suddenly spun on the ice.
You can never go wrong following the conservative recommendation to use that in restrictive clauses and which in nonrestrictive. Do not expect, however, that native speakers will also follow this advice.
Choosing between restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses
Here are two tips that will make the choice between restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses somewhat easier:
1. It follows from the definitions given earlier that proper nouns can only be modified by nonrestrictive adjective clauses. The reason is simple: a proper noun always refers to one specific person, place, or thing. Since adding an adjective clause can never change who or what that person, place, or thing is, all adjective modifiers of proper nouns must be nonrestrictive. Here are some examples using various relative pronouns (except, of course, for that, which is best avoided in nonrestrictive adjective clauses):
Nonrestrictive adjective clauses
Mr. Thompson, who teaches English at my school, used to live in Peru.
Mr. Thompson, whom we all adored, finally retired this year.
The Empire State Building, which is now the tallest building in New York, was completed during the Depression.
The Shadow Cafe, where we had lunch recently, is just off Main Street.
The year 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed, is probably the most important year in American history.
2. Common nouns that are used with an indefinite article (a/an or some) will normally take restrictive adjective clauses. We use indefinite articles to signal that the hearer is not expected to know in advance which particular noun we are talking about. In this sense, common nouns with indefinite articles are the opposite of proper nouns. The function of the adjective clause is to narrow and define the broad generic meaning of the common noun. Here are some examples:
Restrictive adjective clauses
Every morning at seven, a church that is in the neighborhood rings a bell.
He takes a pill that reduces his blood pressure.
Do you know a store that would carry computer accessories?
We are looking for a programmer who is an expert in C++.
Some glasses that we got on sale have chips on their rims.
I can’t stand some commercials that are aired on late-night TV.
Some employees who work in accounting first noticed the problem last week.
Since we typically use restrictive adjective clauses with nouns modified by indefinite articles, it is tempting to leap to the generalization that we must use nonrestrictive adjective clauses with nouns modified by definite articles. This is definitely not the case. Nouns modified by definite articles can use either type of adjective clause, as in the following example:
Restrictive: The contracts that are approved by the Board are binding.
Nonrestrictive: The contracts, which are approved by the Board, are binding.
Needless to say, these two adjective clauses have substantially different meanings. The first sentence with the restrictive clause means that only those contracts that are approved by the Board are binding (contracts not approved by the Board are not binding). The second sentence with the nonrestrictive clause means that all the contracts are binding. The fact that all contracts are approved by the Board is only incidental information. Disputes about whether an adjective clause is restrictive or nonrestrictive are the single most common source of lawsuits related to grammatical issues in legal documents.
Exercise 4.11
Underline all the adjective clauses in the following sentences. Write restrictive or nonrestrictive above each clause as appropriate, and then add commas if the clause is nonrestrictive.
Queen Latifah who is best known as a rap artist is now a successful actress.
1. Let’s meet at the restaurant where we had dinner last night.
2. Strangely enough, houses that are made of wood often survive earthquakes better than houses made of concrete.
3. My roommate whom I knew in high school is from Yemen.
4. The forests that grow in the Pacific Northwest are mostly conifers.
5. The economics test that we just took was harder than I expected it to be.
6. I live in a small town that is on the Mississippi River.
7. My boss who commutes an hour each way likes to work from home when she can.
8. The computer that I use at work is not capable of running the program that I need.
9. Mr. Brown who works for our parent company will be visiting us next week.
10. The euro-dollar exchange rate which has fluctuated wildly lately is the topic of today’s presentation.
11. There is an accident that has completely blocked the tri-city bridge.
12. The tri-city bridge which crosses the James River is far too small for today’s traffic.
13. An attorney who represents our company will give you a call this afternoon.
14. The chief engineer who reports directly to the CEO has issued a new warning.
15. My brother bought a new truck which he promptly wrecked the first time he drove it.
16. It was a request that I could hardly refuse under the circumstances.
17. Last winter which was the coldest in twenty years damaged a lot of our trees.
18. Some banks that were engaged in overly aggressive loans are now in trouble.
19. I got concerned by the sounds that were coming from my printer.
20. The statue commemorates the soldiers who were killed in World War I.
21. My parking permit which cost me over a hundred dollars does not allow me to park next to my building.
22. We should throw away all the food that was not refrigerated right after the party.
23. The building where my dentist has her office is going to be closed for repairs.
24. The state of Washington produces most of the apples that are consumed in the United States.
25. My manager who is not noted for his sense of humor threw the magazine in the trash.