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Old 16-May-2007, 12:21
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Default Re: Simple/Compound sentence, Relative clause

Look at it this way. Ellipsis (...) is common:

[1] Birds sing and (birds) fly. <compound>
[2] John went to the mall and Jim went to the Mall. <compound>

Quote:
Originally Posted by suteja
Somewhere else, I read that relative clause is a special case of adjective clause. Hence, I got (and am) confused. Could you throw some light on this?
A relative clause (or an RC for short) is headed--or begins with--a relative pronoun, and those pronouns are referential. They refer to a noun in the sentence, and it's always the closest noun to them. The RC itself modifies a noun, just like other adjectives:

Ex: This is the book that I bought. (Form: RC; Function: adjectival clause modifying book)

The RC that I bought describes the noun book. Test it:

Q: What kind of book?
A: The book that I bought.

RCs function as adjectives and they are a special kind of adjective because they house a subject, a verb, an object, and way more material than any other kind of adjective does.

Does that help?
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