I wanted to say
The stock price when he joined the company was $30.
Is this grammatically correct and does it sound natural? If not, is there a better way to say it?
Update: To clarify, what I really wanted to know is if when clauses can describe nouns. The previous example might be a bit ambiguous. Another example:
I wanted to know the stock price when he joined the company.
The stock price when he joined the company was $30.
Yes, it's fine.The important thing here is that "when" takes a temporal expression (like "time" or "day") as antecedent. But "stock price" is not temporal, so the PP "when he joined the company" cannot be modifying it.
Instead, a 'fused' relative construction is required. In "when he joined the company", the single word "when" is simultaneously head/antecedent of the PP (as a prenucleus) and adjunct of time in the relative clause.
It has a paraphrase containing noun+integrated relative: "The stock price on the day / at the time when he joined the company was $30".
Note: in modern grammar, "when" is a preposition, thus "when he joined the company" is analysed as a preposition phrase (PP).
When he joined the company, the stock price was $30.
The stock price was $30 when he joined the company.
The stock price, when he joined the company, was $30.
All three are grammatical and idiomatic.
The subordinate clause starting with "when" is not modifying a noun in any of those sentences. The clause functions as a temporal adverb modifying "was."
