Lesson 3 Reducing Adjective Clauses to Adjective Phrases

Essential Question

When it comes to descriptive writing, when can “less” be “more”?

Grammar in the World

What Do I Know?

Use the interactive below to see how much you already know about reducing adjective clauses to adjective phrases:

Building Blocks

Grammar is a complex system and structure of language. Mizzou Academy Grammar Lab spotlights one skill (or block) at a time, but it’s often helpful to see how a skill works together with other, related blocks to build the language structure as a whole. You may find the following resource topics helpful as context for this lesson:

Learn About Reducing Adjective Clauses to Adjective Phrases

Have you ever received feedback on a writing assignment that told you needed to “add details” or asked you provide “specifics”? What’s important to remember in those moments is that your teacher isn’t necessarily asking for more words. What they seek is more clarity, more vividness, more precision, and those great things often come in smaller word-packages.

Let’s Review:

Clauses

A clause is a group of words that contains its own subject and its own verb.
An adjective clause is a dependent clause – meaning that it contains its own subject and verb but cannot stand alone as a complete sentence – that acts as a single adjective. Said differently, the entire clause describes or gives more information about a noun or pronoun.

An adjective clause, which acts like a single adjective in a sentence, has its own subject and verb.

Phrases

A phrase is also a group of words that functions together as a single part of speech, but it does not have a subject and verb of its own. In that way, it’s a more targeted, streamlined group of words.
An adjective phrase can come in many forms, but like its clause counterpart, it will always describe or give more information about a noun or pronoun in the sentence.

Like a single adjective, an adjective phrase modifies a noun or pronoun.

So, you might be thinking, if adjective clauses and adjective phrases basically do the same thing, why does it matter which one I use? Fair question! And the answer is primarily a matter of style.

Adjective clauses can be fantastic tools for adding details and information to a sentence, and there is nothing grammatically “wrong” with using them! You will find often in your writing that an adjective clause is just what you need.

That said, because adjective clauses contain complete ideas – both subjects and verbs of their own – they can start to sound clunky or weigh down your sentences with unnecessary clutter.

Reducing adjective clauses to adjective phrases opens up your writing to greater variety and helps you say more with less.

How to Reduce an Adjective Clause to an Adjective Phrase

Step 1

Identify where you have used (or may want to use) an adjective clause.

What is the noun or pronoun in the sentence that you want to describe or give more information about?

Compound-complex sentences, which have both main clauses and dependent clauses, are sometimes too long.

The noun that I want to describe in more detail is the word sentences.

Step 2

Isolate the adjective clause, and remove the relative pronoun (the subject of the clause) and the verb. (Reminder: In an adjective clause, the relative pronoun – that, which, who/whom/whose – stands for the noun you’re modifying and acts as the subject.)

Once you’ve removed those pesky middle-men – the subject and the verb inside the dependent clause – you now have a phrase you can sculpt and mold in just about any way you like by connecting it directly to the noun or pronoun you want to illuminate.

Step 3

This is where you get to be creative! Find the words in the original adjective clause or elsewhere in the sentence that you think most directly or meaningfully describe the noun you identified in Step 1, and reconnect those details to the noun in the form of a phrase:

What the adjective was explaining, and what I most want to highlight about the sentences I’m describing, is that they have multiple main and dependent clauses.

Compound-complex sentences with both main clauses and dependent clauses are sometimes too long.

Burdened by both main clauses and dependent clauses, compound-complex sentences are sometimes too long.

Compound-complex sentences, stringing together main clauses and dependent clauses, sometimes get too long.

So many choices to create variety in your sentence styles and to find the most vivid phrasing to create the effect you want!

Here are some of the most common types of phrases you can use to reduce and reshape an adjective clause into an adjective phrase:

Types of Phrases that Can Act as Adjectives

Example:

My mother, who is a hopeless romantic at heart, is addicted to Hallmark holiday movies.

Participial Phrase:

a verb form either past (-ed) or present (-ing) that acts as an adjective, along with its modifiers that work together to describe a noun or pronoun in the sentence.

Being a hopeless romantic at heart, my mother is addicted to Hallmark holiday movies.

My mother, addicted to Hallmark holiday movies, is a hopeless romantic at heart.

Infinitive Phrase:

a verb form that begins with the word “to” followed by an action verb that acts as an adjective, along with its modifiers that work together to describe a noun or pronoun in the sentence

To feed the addictions of her romantic heart, my mother binges Hallmark holiday movies.

Prepositional Phrase:

a word that governs and defines a relationship between a noun or pronoun and another word in the sentence, and along with its modifiers describes a noun or pronoun in the sentence

Beyond her addiction to Hallmark holiday movies, my mother is a hopeless romantic at heart.

Appositive Phrase:

a noun or pronoun and its modifiers that, used together, describe another noun or pronoun in the sentence

My mother, hopeless romantic at heart, is addicted to Hallmark Holiday Movies.

Here are some tips to remember when forming adjective phrases:

Place the phrase as close as you can to the noun it modifies.

Adjective phrases breathe life into writing polished for style.

Polished for style, adjective phrases breathe life into writing.

A phrase can be longer (i.e. contain more total words than a clause), but phrases generally are most vivid and effective when they’re concise. Be careful not to fall into the trap of replacing an adjective clause without reducing it to a phrase that clarifies, highlights, and streamlines the description. Otherwise, you may just be adding more clutter.

Phrases can serve different functions in any given sentence. (An infinitive phrase can act as an adverb or as a noun, for example, and the -ing form of a verb might introduce a participle or a gerund, which acts as a noun.) Remember: It’s only an adjective phrase when it modifies a noun or a pronoun.

Do I Get It?

Use the interactive below to test your knowledge of reducing adjective clauses to adjective phrases: