Should adjective clauses always be reduced to adjective phrases? - I

[Joe Carillo]

The Forum’s recent retrospective of the first of its two-part series in 2018 on reducing adjective clauses to adjective phrases drew this rejoinder last October 26 from Forum member Miss Mae: “Does this mean that it’s still okay if writers don’t get to reduce adjective clauses to adjective phrases?”

My answer is a categorical “Yes, of course,” but it could make some of us routinely avoid a very useful technique for streamlining our English and making it more readable. I’ve therefore decided to run that two-part series in this column starting right now.

Part I -  How to reduce adjective clauses to adjective phrases

Adjective phrases and adjective clauses serve to modify nouns and pronouns by identifying or giving additional information about them. The adjective phrase can be any modifying phrase, but the adjective clause works as a dependent or subordinate clause, and as such must have a subject and an operative verb.

                            IMAGE CREDIT: YOUTUBE.COM

To do its work, the adjective clause needs to link itself to the main clause of a sentence with any of (1) the relative pronouns “that,” which,” “who,” “whom,” and “whose,” or (2) the pronouns “when” and “where.” The adjective clause can then function as modifier of the subject in the main clause, as modifier of the object of the operative verb in the main clause, or as object of the preposition.

Consider these two sentences: (1) “Employees who are working on contractual basis are not entitled to regular company benefits.” (2) “The three applicants didn’t possess the skills that we needed for the position.” Sentence 1 uses the adjective clause “who are working on contractual basis” to modify the subject “employees,” and Sentence 2 uses “that we needed for the position” to modify the object “skills” in the main clause.

Note that even if both the relative pronoun “who” and the verb “are” are dropped from the adjective clause “who are working on contractual basis,” Sentence 1 still works perfectly: “Employees working on contractual basis are not entitled to regular company benefits.” Sentence 2 likewise will read and sound even 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 happened here is that the adjective clauses were reduced into adjective phrases.

Let’s summarize the three most common ways of effecting that reduction:

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

(2) When the adjective clause already uses a verb in progressive form, simply drop the relative pronoun and the form of the verb “be.” Thus, 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 yield this more concise sentence: “Animals living in the wild sometimes no longer reproduce when kept in zoos.”

(3) When the adjective clause uses a passive verb 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 “provided with proper nutrition” to yield this more concise sentence: “Indigent children provided with proper nutrition can grow into productive members of society.”

(Next: Should adjective clauses always be reduced to adjective phrases - 2)      November12, 2020

This essay, 2,018th of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the November 5, 2020 Internet edition of The Manila Times,© 2020 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Read this article online in The Manila Times:
“Should adjective clauses always be reduced to adjective phrases?”