School Life ● Grammar and usage
● grammar and usage(introduction to attributive clauses)
do you know the boy? do you like him? have you ever heard of him? yes. harry potter. he is a brave boy. he is a boy with glasses. do you know the meaning here? here is another sentence to describe harry potter. he is a boy who is brave and wearing glasses. can you translate this sentence into chinese? do you know what the underlined is called in english grammar? today we will deal with attributive clause.
the grammar item in this unit deals with attributive clauses. we’ll first learn about what an attributive clause is and the functions of relative pronouns and relative adverbs used to introduce attributive clauses. then we’ll learn the different usages of relative pronouns.
step 1: introduction to attributive clauses
an attributive clause is used to modify a noun and is usually put after the noun. you’re to learn different functions of relative pronouns or relative adverbs used in attributive clauses.
1. words on the blackboard:
an enjoyable experience, best friends, the rules of the school, the article about your experiences in the uk
read these phrases and point out the noun, the adjective or the prepositional phrase in each of them to make sure you know what nouns, adjectives and prepositional phrases are.
we usually use a noun after a preposition, and the preposition together with the noun is called the prepositional phrase.
decide what the function of an adjective or a prepositional phrase is in these examples. then translate them into chinese, and compare the different ways to express the same meaning in english and in chinese.
2. going over point 1 on p8
nouns can be modified by adjectives, prepositional phrases or attributive clauses. pay special attention to the different positions of the adjective (usually before nouns), the prepositional phrase or the attributive clause (after nouns).
now let’s look at the sentence on the blackboard: the team who were wearing green won the game.
the team here is the antecedent (the noun which an attributive clause modifies), who is a relative pronoun introducing the attributive clause who were wearing green, in which who refers to the team and is used as the subject in the attributive clause.
attributive clauses are usually introduced by relative pronouns or relative adverbs, and their functions in the clause are different.
read the example sentences in point 2 and find out what function of the bold part in each sentence is. then point out the attributive clause in each sentence and translate the whole sentence into chinese, so that you can compare the different ways in which the attributive clause is expressed in english and in chinese.