English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
According to this book, the first two highlighted sentences, to avoid confusion, an adjective clause should follow its antecedent, but there are some occasion that some words may come between the antecedent and the adjective clause.
I wonder on what occasion can we insert words between an adjective clause and antecedent. Is it proper to write in this way?
Thank you!
Thank you!
The simple answer is that you can place the clause anywhere that avoids ambiguity.
The example that your book gives, where the placement changes the meaning, is a good one:
He left the gift that he had just bought in a friend's car.
He left the gift in a friend's car that he had just bought.
Since you can buy a car, and you can buy a gift, where you place the clause determines what it is that he bought. In the first sentence, he bought a gift; in the second sentence, he bought a car.
Now, both of these sentences are clear and have the same basic meaning:
A friend of mine at the University of Toronto, who is majoring in electrical engineering, received a government grant.
A friend of mine, who is majoring in electrical engineering at the University of Toronto, received a government grant.
The reason this works is that in effect you have two adjectival clauses, both modifying the antecedent. This is clear when you reword the sentence a bit:
A friend of mine, who is at the University of Toronto, and who is majoring in electrical engineering, received a government grant.
If you have two clauses modifying the same antecedent, either one can go first.
