Part I

Both adjective phrases and adjective clauses serve to modify nouns and pronouns—meaning that they identify or give additional information about the subject or about the object receiving the action in a sentence. However, while an adjective phrase can simply be any kind of modifying phrase—perhaps a series of adjectives, an adjective modified by an adverb, a complement, a prepositional phrase, or a participle phrase—the adjective clause works as a dependent or subordinate clause in a sentence, and as such must have a subject and an operative verb.

To be able to do its work, the adjective clause (also called the relative clause) needs to link itself to the main clause of a sentence by making use of one of the following: the relative pronouns “that,” which,” “who,” “whom,” and “whose” and the pronouns “when” and “where.” The adjective clause can then function in any of three ways: as modifier of the subject in the main clause, as modifier of the object of the operative verb in the main clause, and as object of the preposition.

Now, consider the following two sentences: “Employees who are working on contractual basis are not entitled to regular company benefits.” “The three applicants didn’t possess the skills that we needed for the position.” The first uses an adjective clause, “who are working on contractual basis are not entitled to regular company benefits,” to modify the subject “employees,” and the second, “that we needed for the position,” to modify the object of the operative verb in the main clause, which is “skills.”

We will see that in the case of the first sentence, even if both the relative pronoun “who” and the operative verb “are” are dropped from the adjective clause “who are working on contractual basis,” the sentence will still work perfectly: “Employees working on contractual basis are not entitled to regular company benefits.” The second sentence, too, will actually read and sound better when the relative pronoun “that” is dropped from the adjective clause “that we needed for the position:” “The three applicants didn’t possess the skills we needed for the position.”

What actually happened here was that we were able to reduce the adjective clauses into adjective phrases. Indeed, whenever possible and desirable, an adjective clause that uses the relative pronouns “who,” “which,” and “that” can be reduced into an adjective phrase.

Here, to begin with, are three of the most common ways of effecting such a reduction:

(1) When the operative verb in the adjective clause is in the active form, drop the relative pronoun and convert the operative verb to its progressive form. For example, the adjective clause “who work as full-time professionals” in the sentence “Women who work as full-time professionals are more likely to remain unmarried” can be reduced to the adjective phrase “working as full-time professionals” to make the sentence more concise, as follows: “Women working as full-time professionals are more likely to remain unmarried.”

(2) When the operative verb in the adjective clause is already in the progressive form, simply drop the relative pronoun and the form of the verb “be.” For example, the adjective clause “that are living in the wild” in “Animals that are living in the wild sometimes no longer reproduce when kept in zoos” can be reduced to the adjective phrase “living in the wild” to make the sentence more concise, as follows: “Animals living in the wild sometimes no longer reproduce when kept in zoos.”

(3) When the operative verb in the adjective clause is in the passive form, drop the relative pronoun and the form of the verb “be.” For example, the adjective clause “who are provided proper nutrition” in “Indigent children who are provided with proper nutrition can grow into productive members of society” can be reduced to the adjective phrase “provided with proper nutrition” to make the sentence more concise, as follows: “Indigent children provided with proper nutrition can grow into productive members of society.” (December 27, 2008)

Part II

We saw in the previous essay that generally, adjective clauses that use the relative pronouns “who,” “which,” and “that” can be reduced by dropping the relative pronoun and the form of the verb “be” used in the adjective clause. For example, in the sentence “Many politicians who are elected to public office often treat their positions as family heirlooms,” the adjective clause “who are elected to office” can be reduced to the adjective phrase “elected to public office” to produce this more concise, forthright sentence: “Many politicians elected to public office often treat their positions as family heirlooms.”

Recall that adjective clauses, which are also called relative clauses, can either be restrictive or nonrestrictive. It is restrictive when it provides essential information about the subject of the sentence, as the clause “that has just ended” in “The year that has just ended was notable for its severe economic turbulence.” On the other hand, it is nonrestrictive when it provides information that isn’t essential to the meaning of the sentence (as indicated by the commas setting the clause off from the main clause), as the clause “which was uninhabited a decade ago” in “The island, which was uninhabited a decade ago, is now a world-class resort.”

Now, whether restrictive or nonrestrictive, an adjective clause can often be reduced to an adjective phrase to make the sentence more concise. In the first example given in the preceding paragraph, for instance, the restrictive adjective clause “that has just ended” can be reduced to the adjective phrase “just ended” to yield this sentence: “The year just ended was notable for its severe economic turbulence.” Similarly, in the second example, the nonrestrictive adjective clause “which was uninhabited a decade ago” can be reduced to the adjective phrase “uninhabited a decade ago” to yield this sentence: “The island, uninhabited a decade ago, is now a world-class resort.”

Note that when a nonrestrictive adjective clause modifying the subject of a sentence is reduced to an adjective phrase, as in the example above, the adjective phrase can alternatively be placed in front of the subject of the sentence: “Uninhabited a decade ago, the island is now a world-class resort.” This can’t be done in the case of reduced restrictive adjective clauses. In fact, in the case of the first sentence with the restrictive adjective clause reduced to an adjective phrase, putting “just ended” up front yields this fractured sentence: “Just ended, the year was notable for its severe economic turbulence.”

We must also beware that it isn’t always possible to reduce an adjective clause to an adjective phrase. For example, in the sentence “The rain that fell in torrents yesterday was the heaviest this year,” it’s not possible at all to reduce the adjective clause “that fell in torrents this morning.” To simply drop the relative pronoun “that” from the adjective clause produces this fractured sentence “The rain fell in torrents yesterday was the heaviest this year;” on the other hand, following the first reduction procedure described in Part I of this essay, to drop “that” and convert “fell” to the progressive-form “falling” to reduce the adjective clause to the adjective phrase “falling in torrents this morning” yields this semantically dubious, time-skewed sentence, “The rain falling in torrents yesterday was the heaviest this year.”

For an even better feel of the limits of adjective clause reduction, try doing it for this sentence: “Customers who have missed the show are disappointed.” (Were you able to do it?)

Indeed, we need to play it by ear when faced with the choice of reducing an adjective clause to an adjective phrase. If the reduction makes the sentence sound better without altering its sense, go right ahead. But if the reduction doesn’t sound right or changes the meaning of the sentence, simply leave the adjective clause the way it is, relative pronoun and all. (January 3, 2009)

From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, December 27, 2008 and January 3, 2009, © 2008 and © 2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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When an awful act or serious mistake is made, particularly one that leads to a disastrous or tragic outcome, rare indeed is the soul that comes out in the open to take the blame for it. The usual response of the culpable is to ascribe the deed to somebody else or something else: “They had me scoop the money from the vault at gunpoint.” (The perpetrator of an inside job is trying to extricate himself from the crime.) “An earthquake made the mountain unleash the deadly mudslide.” (Actually, loggers had ruthlessly stripped the mountain of every inch of its forest cover.) “The steel gate’s collapse caused the people to stampede.” (The crowd-control measures simply were too puny for so large a mass of humanity aiming to get rich quick.) 

The English language has, in fact, evolved a special verb form to make people avoid acknowledging responsibility—if only for the moment—when caught in such situations. That verb form is the causative verb, which carries out an action that causes another action to happen. In the three sentences given as examples above, in particular, “have” is the causative verb in the first, causing the action “scoop” to happen; “make” is the causative verb in the second, causing the action “unleash” to happen; and “cause” is the causative verb in the third, causing the action “stampede” to happen. In each case, the crime or calamitous outcome is acknowledged but no one is accepting responsibility for it.

Causative verbs are, of course, not only meant to make people avoid taking responsibility for things that have gone sour or disastrous. In general, they are used to indicate the sort of actions that people don’t do themselves but allow, ask, or force other people to do: “Emily’s supervisor permitted her to leave early today.” “Our landlady reminded us to pay our overdue rent.” “The thieves forced the tourists to hand over their jewelry.”

Note that in a causative construction, the subject doesn’t actually do the action of the operative verb but only causes the object to do that action. In the last example above, for instance, the subject is “the thieves” and the object is “the tourists,” and the causative verb “force” makes this object do the action of handing over the jewelry.

The other most commonly used causative verbs are “allow,” “assist,” “convince,” “employ,” “help,” “hire,” “let,” “motivate,” “remind,” “require,” and “urge.” When used in a sentence, practically all of these causative verbs are followed by an object (a noun or pronoun) followed by an infinitive: “We allowed foreigners to invest in the local mining industry.” “The recruiter convinced me to leave for Jeddah at once.” “The desperate applicant employed deceit to get the plum job.”

The only notable exceptions to this pattern are the causative verbs “have,” “make,” and “let.” They are followed by a noun or pronoun serving as an object, but this time what follows the object is not an infinitive but the base form of the verb (meaning its infinitive form without the “to”): “I had my fellow investors sign the incorporation papers yesterday.” “They made him finish writing the book in only five weeks.” “We let the students pick the class schedules they want.” 

Like the causative verb, another type of verb that exhibits peculiar behavior is the so-called factitive verb. While the usual transitive verb can take only one direct object, a factitive verb actually needs two of them. There are only a few of its kind, however, among them “choose,” “elect,” “judge,” “adjudge,” “make,” “name,” and “select.”

Here’s how a factitive verb works: “The prestigious finance magazine last night chose our company “Best at Consumer Goods” in its annual poll.” Here, “choose” is the factitive verb, “our company” is the direct object, and “‘Best at Consumer Goods’” is the objective complement—all three in tight, uninterrupted interlock. (February 20, 2006)

From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, February 20, 2006 © 2006 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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