(toc) #title= (Table of Content)
Prepositional Phrases
A Prepositional Phrase is made up of a preposition and its object. It begins with a preposition and ends with a noun phrase which is called its object or complement. As the noun is the head of a noun phrase, so is the preposition the head of a prepositional phrase as in the following examples:
1. (a) …in the house
(b) …at the bank
(c) … on the table
(d) …about the topic
(e) …before the station
Sometimes the noun which serves as the object of the preposition has modifiers, but the important words in the phrase are the preposition and the object. The prepositions and the objects are italicized in the following examples:
2. He jogged round the field
3. The cap with the eagle feather is mine
The prepositional phrase is, therefore, a subordinating construction that provides information about place and time of events. It also gives descriptions, indicates ownership, and so on. In the following examples, prepositional phrases indicate either place or time.
4. The house by the river is haunted (place)
5. She has an appointment with the Registrar tomorrow (time)
Other examples of prepositional phrases which make descriptions or indicate ownership are:
6. … the dome of a building (description
7. … a bag with a black label (description)
8. … the home of the President (ownership)
As can be observed from the above examples, a prepositional phrase can function as an adjective or an adverb. Consider these additional examples:
9. I met John at the bank (functions as Adv. Phrase)
10. The old man in a black suit is a clergyman (functions as an Adverbial Phrase)
Since adjectives and adverbs are modifiers, the prepositional phrase is also a modifier.
Adjectival Phrases
Adjectival Phrases qualify or modify nouns or pronouns. They perform the same functions as adjectives and are often equivalent to adjectives. Adjectival phrases perform attributive (when they appear before or premodify nouns) and predicative (when they come after the nouns) functions as can be seen in the following examples:
1. The beautiful lady is my wife (attributive) 2. A careless statement was made by the speaker (attributive) 3. Fat men cannot run (attributive) 4. His house is small (predicative) 5. Mr. Paul is rich (predicative) 6. The man looks stupid (predicative)
From our discussions in the last section of this unit, we can say that adjectival phrases can also be prepositional phrases that modify nouns or pronouns. Consider the following examples:
7. The man at the gate turned her away. 8. She lives in the house near the river 9. He killed the bird with red feathers
In the above examples, the italicized prepositional phrases function as adjectival phrases in that, like adjectives, they describe or qualify the nouns near to them.
From the foregoing, we see that Adjectival Phrases qualify nouns or pronouns. They may appear before or after the nouns. Where they function as prepositional phrases, they describe and modify the nouns.
Adverbial Phrases
An Adverbial Phrase is a group of words that modifies a verb, adjective or another adverb or even the whole sentence, by telling us how, when, where, why, to what extent or the condition of an action indicated by the verb. That is to say, an adverbial phrase expresses time, place, manner and degree as in the following examples:
1. The plane arrived yesterday (modifies the verb arrived)
2. These boys are quick, especially Moses (modifies the adjective quick)
3. John runs extremely fast (modifies fast)
4. He will visit in the morning (modifies visit and tells us when)
5. Adam lived in the garden (tells us where)
6. She left the house in a hurry (tells us how) As can be seen from the examples, prepositional phrases function as adverbial phrases. Adverbial phrases that modify verbs are very easy to identify. The same cannot be said of adverbial phrases that modify adjectives and adverbs. When an adverbial phrase modifies an adjective or a verb, it usually follows the category it modifies as in
7. He seemed afraid of the dark (modifies afraid) 8. John came quite early (modifies came)
As with other categories we have discussed, Adverbial Phrases can have adverbs as heads, and the adverbial phrases usually occur within verb phrases as in the following examples:
9. He ran very quickly 10. He died suddenly
Clauses
Independent (Main) Clauses
There are two kinds of clauses: Independent (or main) Clause and Dependent (or Subordinate) Clause. An independent clause has a subject and a predicate and does not depend on anything else for its meaning. It expresses a complete thought and can stand alone. It is a simple sentence as in the following:
1. The football match has ended.
2. The girl is dark in complexion However, consider
(3) below:
3. The man gave her some money and she paid her school fees
In (3), there are two independent clauses: the man gave her some money and she paid her school fees. The conjunction and joins the two clauses. In other words, these two clauses are two simple sentences that are joined by and. The conjunction does not belong to any of the simple sentences – it simply joins two simple sentences to form a sentence.
Dependent (Subordinate) Clauses
A Dependent or Subordinate Clause is a group of words that has a subject and a predicate but it cannot express a complete thought. In other words, it cannot stand alone. It is called a dependent or subordinate clause; it depends on the main clause for its meaning. The idea of a subordinate clause implies that there is a main clause upon which a subordinate clause depends. The word that introduces the dependent clause is called a connective and it plays an important role in making such a clause dependent. Consider this example:
1. She paid her school fees when the man gave her some money
In (1), the italicized group of words is a dependent clause. Though the clause has both a subject and a predicate, it cannot stand alone. The connective when which introduces the clause makes the other words in the clause to depend on the main clause for the meaning of the clause.
That is why the clause when the man gave her some money is called a dependent clause. The group of words she paid her school fees is an independent clause and so, can stand alone. It is the main clause of the sentence because it carries the main idea in the sentence. Examples are:
2. The book that has a hard cover is mine 3. I bought it because it has a hard cover 4. The goal which Kanu scored was disallowed 5. The man who died yesterday was a student
The italicized clauses in (2)-(5) above are dependent clauses. As can be noticed in the examples, although the subordinate clauses do not make complete thoughts, they have subjects and predicates.
Types of Dependent Clauses
There are three types of dependent clauses, namely, noun clauses, adjectival clauses, and adverbial clauses. The noun clause functions as a noun, the adjectival clause functions as an adjective, and an adverbial clause functions as an adverb.
Noun Clauses
Noun clauses, just like noun phrases, perform the functions of nouns in sentences. A noun clause can function as the subject of a sentence, the direct object of a verb, the complement, and the object of a preposition. Consider the following examples:
6. That he was offered admission uplifted him a great deal (subject of the sentence) 7. The chief gave us what we wanted (object of the verb) 8. We made the man what he is today (object complement) 9. The important thing is that he has arrived (subject complement) 10. He spoke of what took place several years ago (object of preposition) 11. Where you erect your building is not my concern (subject of the sentence) 12. You should remember where you lost the keys (object of verb)
Noun clauses are usually introduced by what, that, how, and where. Some of these words are also used to introduce adverbial and adjectival clauses. To be sure you are dealing with noun clauses and not adjectival and adverbial clauses, you should determine what the function of the clause is in the sentence. If the clause performs the same function that a noun normally performs, then it is a noun clause.
Adjectival Clauses
Adjectival clauses perform the functions of adjectives and adjectival phrases. They qualify nouns and pronouns. An adjective clause is a subordinate clause used to describe or limit a noun or a pronoun.
An adjective clause is usually introduced by a relative pronoun. A relative pronoun joins an adjective clause to some word in the main clause. The word to which the relative pronoun relates is known as the antecedent of the relative pronoun. The relative pronouns used in this way are who (whom), which, that, whose, and where as in the following examples:
1. I saw the car that he bought (qualifies car) 2. I saw the thief that stole the car (qualifies thief) 3. He bought the house which the governor commissioned (qualifies house) 4. The man called the police who chased away the robbers (qualifies police) 5. Ngozi visited the village where she was born (qualifies village) 6. The woman whose goat was stolen is here (qualifies woman)
Adverbial Clauses
Adverbial clauses, like adverbs and adverbial phrases, modify verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Consider this sentence:
1. They always cry when their mother travels
In the example, the subordinate clause when their mother travels is an adverbial clause and it modifies the verb cry. Because this clause expresses time, it is an adverbial clause of time.
Just like adverbs, adverbial clauses answer the questions how, when, where, and to what extent or degree the action is performed. Adverbial clauses can also express several other ideas which the simple adverb does not express. The adverbial clause modifies a verb more than it modifies an adjective or an adverb.
An adverbial clause is a subordinate clause, and like other subordinate clauses, it is usually introduced by a subordinating conjunction. A subordinating conjunction is so called because it makes the idea expressed subordinate to the main clause in the sentence. It also shows the relation between the subordinate clause and the word in the main clause which the subordinate clause modifies.
Let us consider more examples:
2. Peter lives where his school is located (modifies lives; adverb of place)
3. I saw him when he came to the class (modifies saw; adverb of time
4. They sang as if they were angels (modifies sang; adverb of manner)
5. We visited him because he was sick (modifies visited; adverb of reason)
6. She labored so hard that she fell sick (modifies labored; adverb of result)
7. He came so that he can talk to you (modifies came; adverb of purpose)
8. If it rains, I will not come (modifies will not come; adverb of condition)
9. He drinks beer more than I do (modifies drinks; adverb of comparison)
10. She wept because she failed the exams (modifies wept; adverb of reason)
11. The party started when the commissioner arrived (modifies started; adverb of time)
Conclusion
In this unit, we have discussed phrases and clauses. We saw that phrasal categories are projections or expansions of lexical categories, and they perform functions similar to those performed by their lexical counterparts.
We also discussed clauses which differ from phrases in that they contain subjects and predicates. These clauses – Noun Clause, Adjectival Clause, and Adverbial Clause – function like nouns, adjectives, and adverbs respectively. They are dependent or subordinate clauses because they depend on the main clauses for their full meaning.
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