Talking about adjective subordinate clauses no longer represents something unprecedented for us, since, through the text “Subordinate adjective clauses”, we had the opportunity to learn a little more about the characteristics that we can attribute to them.
Well, we invite you to expand your knowledge even more about those subjects that grammar brings us, you know? Of course you know, as they are all of fundamental importance to us. So, get to work! From now on we will know the two classifications of subordinate adjective clauses: the restrictive and theexplanatory.
Note this example below:
The students who spoke loudly they were upsetting the teacher.
As you can see, the term that is highlighted, "that they spoke out", makes reference to only one group of students, not all of them. Thus, this whole term restricts, individualizes, the meaning of the previous term, which in this case is represented by “students”.
Given this reason, we can say that it is a restrictive adjective clause, which specifies, restricts, the term to which it refers.
Now let's look at another example?
The students, who are hardworking, manage to obtain a good result in the evaluations.
Obviously, here it is no longer about a specific group, but about all hardworking students, that is, all students have this characteristic. In this sense, we must be aware of two fundamental aspects: one of them is that the term that appears underlined is found between commas, and the other is that the meaning refers to a set as a whole.
For these reasons we can say that we are facing an explanatory adjectival subordinate clause.
Take the opportunity to check out our video lesson related to the subject:
