A Reduced Clause is Not a Skinny Santa (Part I: Adjective Clauses)

Isn’t studying a language fun?  The first exposure to “reality” is the best part.  High school students all over the U.S. study Spanish for one, two or even three years and then, during Spring Break their senior year, they go on a class trip to Mexico to actually use their Spanish for the first time.  And they can’t understand a bloody word.  Have you ever noticed that “natives” never speak like a textbook?


My moment came during my first year in Japan.  I had been studying from a textbook on my own and was slowly starting to figure some stuff out.  For example, if you want to offer tea to someone, you say “Anata wa o-cha nomimasu ka?”  By putting ka on the end, you make it a question and masu at the end of the verb makes if very polite.  “Would you like to drink some tea?” How lovely!  That’s why, when the middle-aged OL in the teacher’s lounge kept saying to me “O-cha nomu,” I thought she was telling me that she was going to have some tea.  I started to get confused when she repeated this for the fourth time.  Suddenly, it dawned on me!  She was asking ME if I wanted some tea.  Huh?  Where’s the ka?  (This would be similar to an American asking a basic English speaker “Want some coffee?”  Huh?)  My confusion was caused because I didn’t realize she was reducing the formal question that I had learned.


A reduced clause is a clause that has had unnecessary or understood words left out.  For example, you can shorten Before I go to bed, I brush my teeth to Before going to bed... because the subject of both clauses is I.  This is an example of a reduced adverb clause.  There are tons of reductions in English, but the good people at Educational Testing Services (ETS), also known as the wonderful company that makes the SAT test, just loves putting reduced adjective clauses on the TOEFL test, which they have also generously blessed us with.  My guess is that more than 10% of questions on Part II of the TOEFL test relate to reduced adjective clauses.  Learning to recognize them is a good step toward improving your score.


What are the most common ways to reduce an adjective clause?


By far the most common reduced adjective clauses are defining*, object** clauses.  They are also the easiest to reduce.  Look at the following examples.

• I forgot to bring the lunch that I made last night.
• Our son introduced us to the girl who he has been dating.
• I will never forget the day when my son was born.
• Is there somewhere where I can store my luggage for a few hours?

All you have to do is remove the relative pronoun.  (BTW - in informal English, that can almost always be used instead of who, when and where.)

• I forgot to bring the lunch I made last night.
• Our son introduced us to the girl he has been dating.
• I will never forget the days my sons were born.
• Is there somewhere I can store my luggage for a few hours?

The easiest way to identify these reduced clauses is to look for two nouns that are not separated by a comma next to each other.  These are similar to appositives, which are also reduced adjective clauses, but they are quite different.*** These are also the easiest reduced clauses for second-language learners to write.


The second most common reduced adjective clause comes from a defining subject clause that also has a form of the be verb in it.  This includes SVC clauses, continuous verbs (be doing) and passive verbs (be done).

• My wife made a dinner that was worthy of a king.  (SVC)
• The children who are playing in the pool are making a lot of noise.  (continuous)
• Who owns the car that is parked illegally?  (passive)

Just like the other reduced clauses, you start by eliminating the relative pronoun.  However, you must also eliminate the be verb.  You don’t have to do anything to the main verbs, though.

• My wife made a dinner worthy of a king.
• The children playing in the pool are making a lot of noise.
• Who owns the car parked illegally?

The third main type of reduced adjective clause is a little trickier.  How do you reduce a clause that doesn’t have a be verb?  The answer is: Carefully.

• A s’more is a camping favorite that consists of chocolate, marshmallow and graham crackers.
• Anyone who takes this class next year will have to buy the new version of the textbook.

Just like all the others, you start by eliminating the relative pronoun.  However, you can’t just leave the verb as it is.  Otherwise, it will look like a main clause.  (You will have two main verbs but no connecting word.)  The second step is to change the main verb of the adjective clause to a gerund.  (This looks very similar to a reduced continuous tense clause.)

• A s’more is a camping favorite consisting of chocolate, marshmallow and graham crackers.
• Anyone taking this class next year will have to buy the new version of the textbook.

Voila!  There you have it.  These are the three ways I have found to reduce an adjective clause.  Most reduced clauses are defining, but you can reduce non-defining subject clauses by following the same rules.  It doesn’t seem to be nearly as common though.  There are, however, some clauses that cannot be reduced.  You cannot reduce a non-defining object clause.  It just ain’t possible.  You also cannot reduce a clause that has a helping verb like can, must or will.


If you understand these rules and want to try reducing clauses in your own writing, be my guest.  It’s not extremely important to be able to do this, but it will make your writing smoother.  It is essential, though, that you be able to recognize reduced adjective clauses when you find one, especially on the TEOFL test.  The simplest test, when you think you’ve found one is to add that and the be verb.  If it works, it's a reduced adjective clause.  With practice, this will get easier and easier.

Go to Part II

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*For an explanation of defining and non-defining clauses, please refer to my blog on the subject: The Eternal Question: Which or That?


**An object clause is one in which the relative pronoun (who, which or that) is the direct object of the adjective clause.  A subject clause is one in which the relative clause is the subject of the clause.

• I just bought a new car. / Do you like the car that you just bought?
• The car has a GPS system. / I need a car that has a GPS system.

***There are two differences between these clauses and appositives.  First, most reduced object clauses are defining clauses, whereas most appositives come from non-defining, subject clauses.  Second, the two nouns of an appositive are the same person, place or thing.  With these reduced clauses, they are usually different.

I’m Such an Optimist, I’m Appositive (Part II)

Which piece of information should go in the appositive?


When I write a sentence with a non-defining adjective clause, I have to decide which information should be in the main clause and which information should be in the adjective clause.  I ask myself a simple question.  What is the most important piece of information?  What do I want the reader to remember most?  What information should I emphasize?  (Each of these is basically the same question worded differently, in case you were thinking “Hey!  You said ONE question!”)  For example:

• Baseball, which is called the National Pastime, was played as early as the Civil War.
• Baseball, which was played as early as the Civil War, is called the National Pastime.

Both of these sentences have the same information, but the first sentence emphasizes the history of baseball (played during the Civil War) because that is the main clause.  Conversely, the second sentence emphasizes the importance of baseball in the U.S. (the National Pastime).  This is the same way you decide which noun should be the appositive (the second noun in the pair).  For example, if I am writing about my kids, their names and their ages, I have two choices:

• My older son, Kai, is almost 16 and my younger son, Skyler, is 18 months old.
• Kai, my older son, is almost 16 and Skyler, my younger son, is 18 months old.

Both of these sentences are grammatically correct, but I prefer the first one.  I am talking about their ages, so making the words older and younger part of the main noun makes more sense.  Their names are important, but not as important in this case.  There is also an idea that I don’t know the person I am talking well, like the woman sitting next to me on an airplane.  We are enjoying a nice conversation, but once the plane lands, she won’t remember my kids’ names, just like I will remember that she has three dogs (I love dogs.), but I’ll never remember her dogs' names, either.  On the other hand:

• My older son, Kai, loves sports while my younger son, Skyler, is more of a musician.
• Kai, my older son, loves sports while Skyler, my younger son, is more of a musician.

In this case, I prefer putting the name first and their “ranking” in apposition.  This is because I am telling my Facebook friends about my kids’ interests, but I’m also reminding them of their “position” in case they forgot or didn’t know.  It’s not that important, though.  (I love them both equally, until one of them becomes a multi-millionaire and I can retire on their money.)


What are appositives used for?


Most commonly, appositives are used with people.  This is a way to give both a person’s name and their title.  In this case, my advice for organization is to put the title first and the name in apposition, unless of course, you have a reason to go the other way.  Final decision is always yours.  (Students: Remember, however, that I am the one who decides your grade, so for you, final decision is MINE!)  For example:

• the President of the United States, Barack Obama
• the captain of the New York Yankees, Derek Jeter
• the leader of the Confederate Army, Robert E. Lee

Another common usage is to define something, especially foreign words or technical terms.  For example:

• bento, a Japanese style boxed lunch
• quinceañera, a fifteenth birthday party given for girls in many Latin American cultures
• the modem, the hardware that connects your computer to the Internet
• a sextant, the tool used by early explorers to figure out how far north or south they were

When the definition is first and the term is second, you should add the conjunction or.  (Commas before and after are very important)

• Korean-style dumplings, or man-doo,
• the outrigger of a Hawaiian racing canoe, or ama,
• the computer that stores a web page, or server,
• the ball accidentally going forward in rugby, or knock-on,

Another use of an appositive is to show the acronym* of a group of words.  (Acronyms are often preceded by or put inside parentheses.)  For example:

• the United Nations, or UN,
• the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)
• the University of Southern California (USC)

Finally, appositives can be used to give lists of things that are part of the category described by the original noun.  The original noun is followed by a colon.

• the three major professional leagues in the U.S.: the NFL, the NBA and MLB
• the four seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter
• two of my all-time favorite bands: Rush and KISS

Another way to punctuate appositives is with a dash, both before and after the appositive.  (A dash is made by putting two hyphens together.  There should be no space either before or after the dash.

• two of my all-time favorite bands–Rush and KISS
• bento–a Japanese-style boxed lunch
• when the ball accidentally goes forward in rugby–a knock-on

A more advanced usage of appositives that I found is when you want to give several detailed descriptions of one noun.  I found this good example in the book Over the Edge of the Earth.   (BTW - that is an apposition.)

• Magellan’s insistence on a ten-year exclusive on voyages to the Spice Islands appeared preposterous in a fast-changing world, but he was concerned that Spain would send duplicate expeditions as soon as his was out of sight of land, expeditions guided by his theories and secrets, expeditions that might succeed if he failed.

The original noun that is followed by the appositives is expeditions.  This is followed by two more uses of the word expeditions, each of which is followed by an adjective clause.  Both of these refer back to the original word expedition.  (Notice: No connecting words in front.)


Here are some of the more interesting appositives I’ve found.

• Magellan sent word to the recalcitrant chieftains that if they did not convert immediately and swear allegiance to King Charles, he would confiscate their property, a European concept that was nearly meaningless to the islanders, and he vowed to punish them with death, a threat they understood but chose to ignore.  (Over the Edge of the Earth)

In this sentence there are two appositives.  The first appositive is a European concept.  This concept involves an action, so technically the appositive is connected to a gerund, which is the “noun” form of a verb.  (The original sentence the appositive comes from is: Confiscating property is a European concept.)  The second appositive, a threat, is very similar.  The original sentence that the appositive comes from is: Punishing them with death was a threat they understood....

• Meanwhile, Seville’s titled oligarchy fattened itself with income derived from leasing lands to farmers or cashed in on their titles and prestige to engage in commercial pursuits: importing wine, oil, and soap.  (Over the Edge of the World)

In this case, the original noun is followed by a gerund phrase in apposition.  The pursuits of Seville’s titled oligarchy were importing wine, oil and soap.

• Then Stephanopoulos asked about his association with William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground (a group that had bombed the Pentagon and the Capitol in the early seventies), who lived in Obama’s neighborhood in Chicago and with whom he was said to be friendly.  (Game Change)

This one has an appositive inside an appositive.  The first appositive, which describes William Ayers, is a former member of the Weather Underground.  This is followed by a second appositive, in parentheses, that defines the Weather Underground, which was a group that bombed the Pentagon...  I think this one is especially cool.

• The Bird told people that he was a refugee from Tokyo whose relatives were all dead, a story that, in postwar Japan, was as common as white rice.  (Unbroken)

This last example involves a noun clause.  The appositive is the noun story.  The story was that the Bird was a refugee from Tokyo whose relatives were dead.


In conclusion, appositives are very common in written English and serve many purposes.  Most appositives are easy to find and fairly easy to use.  However, as I’ve discovered during my little bit of research, appositives come in all shapes and sizes.  (Sometimes appositives can come before the noun, too.  Ask me about that later.)  They all have one common denominator: appositives are all based around nouns.  They can be in the form of gerunds, or noun clauses or even infinitives.  They can be followed by long, descriptive adjective clauses.  The subject of the sentence can be described by an appositive at the end of the sentence.  When you go appositive hunting, there’s no telling what you will find.


However, every appositive I found was discovered the same way.  I found a noun that didn’t seem to be connected to anything else.


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*An acronym is made when you take the first letter of each word in a name and make an abbreviation, like JFK for John F. Kennedy.

I’m Such an Optimist, I’m Appositive (Part I)

What is an appositive?


An appositive is used in writing to give more information about a person, place or thing.  (People use appositives in conversation, too, but it’s really not that important.)  Appositives look like they break two cardinal rules of writing: Everything must be connected and If you have two nouns together, you must have one connecting word, either a preposition or a conjunction.  (These are appositives, by the way.)  Here are the signs of an appositive.

1. When you see two nouns, back to back, without a connecting word, you probably have an appositive.
2. An appositive is usually separated from the original noun by a comma.  (I will explain more about this later.)
3. The two nouns are the same person, place or thing.  Sometimes they are even the same word.

Here are some examples of sentences with appositives.

• My older son, Kai, is sixteen years old and my younger son, Skyler, is 18 months old.
• The most popular pieces of technology, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, are all made by Apple.
• Last summer, I toured the Gettysburg Battlefield, the site of perhaps the most important event in U.S. history.

The purpose of the appositive is to identify the noun, to give more information.*  What are your son’s names?  What are the most popular pieces of technology?  What is the significance of the Battle of Gettysburg?  Most commonly, appositives give the name or title of a person.  (older son = Kai; younger son = Skyler)  Appositives are also used to connect lists of examples (popular technology = iPod, iPhone, iPad).  Obviously it is possible two have two or more nouns in apposition.  Appositives are also very useful for giving detailed descriptions of a noun (Battle of Gettysburg = the site of...), when a couple of adjectives is not enough.  I have seen several examples of the same word repeated three times, and each one is followed by an adjective clause, all of which describe the original noun, like this.

• One of my personal heros is Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who changed the course of American history, a man who believed that violence and hatred were never acceptable, a man who was willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the country.

If you think appositives are very similar to adjectives clauses, you are absolutely right because an appositive is basically a reduced adjective clause.**  Appositives originally come from simple SVC adjective clauses.  For example:

• my oldest son, Kai   /   my oldest son, whose name is Kai
• pieces of technology, the iPod...   /   pieces of technology, which are the iPod...
• Gettysburg Battlefield, the site...   /   Gettysburg Battlefield, which was the site...

Easy peasey, lemon squeezy.  However, don’t be fooled.  Just because two nouns are separated by a comma, that doesn’t mean there is an appositive.  For example:

• After rugby practice, Kai went back to his room and took a long, hot shower.

Practice and Kai are together, and they are separated by a comma, but this is not an appositive.  First, there is a connecting word.  Practice is the object of the preposition after.  (Here's an appositive without commas.)  You could move this whole phrase to the end of the sentence and nothing would really change.  Second, the two nouns don’t have the same meaning.  Kai is a person (as much as any teenager is a person) while practice is a thing.  For these reasons, this is not an appositive.


Also, it is easy to get fooled by a compound subject or object that has three or more nouns.  For example:

• We made a picnic lunch, sandwiches and a bento, and went for a hike.
• I put my lunch, a bottle of water, and some bug spray in my backpack.

The first example has an appositive, because sandwiches and a bento describe the picnic lunch.  They are the same.  However, the second sentence does not have an appositive, even though lunch and a bottle of water are separated by a comma.  In this case, I have listed the three things I put in my backpack.  My lunch and a bottle of water are two of them.  Besides, a bottle of water is not a very good lunch.


Do you always need commas with an appositive?


My 90% answer*** is, YES.  If you write an appositive, put commas both before and after the second noun (and whatever might be attached to the second noun, like an adjective clause).  Because an appositive comes from a reduced adjective clause, they follow the rules regarding defining and non-defining adjective clauses.  (Click on the link to see a more detailed explanation.)


In a nutshell, you need commas when you add a non-defining clause to a noun.  A non-defining clause is an adjective clause that gives extra, bonus information the reader may or may not already know or want to know.  It’s kind of like the director’s commentary on a DVD.  You are adding it just in case someone might think it’s interesting.  Since appositives are adding definitions, extra descriptive information, lists and examples, most of the time, this is bonus material.


Of the approximately ninety sentences I pulled out of books, and probably many more I didn’t because they seemed very simple and obvious, only five didn’t have commas.  This is closer to a 95% rule.  It’s certainly not enough to lose sleep over.  Besides, once you become comfortable with punctuating adjective clauses in general, that will carry over to appositives.


These are the basics of appositives and I recommend that intermediate learners of English try to use simple appositives when they write.  However, learning to identify appositives is much trickier and much more important for reading comprehension.  If you would like to know more, keep reading Part II.

Go to Part II

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*In this sentence, two infinitive phrases are in apposition: to identify... and to give....


**A reduced clause is a clause from which several understood words are eliminated because they are unnecessary.  For example:

• Before we move to California, we need to sell a lot of stuff. / Before moving to California...  (We is the subject of both clauses, so it can be eliminated in the dependent clause.)
• You will do fine on your exam if you are well-prepared. / You will do fine if well-prepared.  (This is a formal, literary structure, but again, the subject is the same in both clauses.  Also, the “be” verb can very often be dropped in reduced clauses.)
• The car that is parked in my spot... / The car parked in my spot.

***A 90% answer is what I call an overly simplified rule that a language learner can use to make decisions.  It means that this rule works about 90% of the time, but if you always follow it, you will be wrong 10% of the time, which is still an A-.  In other words, for now, if you follow this simplified rule all the time, it’s good enough.  However, you will need to amend, or add to, this rule as your English becomes more advanced.

I’m Such an Optimist, I’m Appositive (Introduction)

Let me tell you how much of a grammar geek I really am.  Last summer, I treated myself and bought an iPad with a little extra money I had earned during summer vacation.  (When you live in Hawaii, you don’t have a lot of disposable income.  Sometimes getting a new toy like this feels like I’m saving money from a paper route.)  I have always had poor eyesight and it’s not getting any better in my middle years.  The print in books seemed to be getting smaller and smaller and I just didn’t enjoy reading nearly as much as I used to.  And then came the iPad.


Someone told me I could download a Kindle app for free, so instead of using the Apple iBook app, I decided to use the Amazon app for my primary reader.  (You can also download a Kindle app for your iPhone, which is a good back-up when you don’t have your iPad.*)  It has been so wonderful, it’s almost like I’ve learned to read all over again.  I read faster, my comprehension is better and I can read for hours.  I find myself, more and more, choosing to read rather than watch TV, which is pretty amazing considering my years as a TV addict.  I highly recommend an e-book reader for second-language learners.


So what does this have to do with me being a grammar geek?  Back in the dark ages, also known as B.I (before iPads),, when I read a traditional book, I would often find sentences that illustrated some grammar point that I was teaching in class and I’d think “Man, I should write this down and show it to my students.”  And then I’d keep reading, forget all about it and the moment would be lost forever.  (I really hate highlighting non-textbooks, which is a personal quirk, and writing in margins gives me the heebie-jeebies.  Plus, the lighting is usually bad at my desk, the book keeps closing itself, etc.  Too much hassle)  But now, with my iPad, I can simply highlight the sentence, keep reading and then transcribe a whole bunch of sentences later.  I thought I’d hit the mother-load when I got six pages of sentences from Game Change.  The last two books I’ve read, Unbroken and Over the Edge of the World**, have resulted in twelve and sixteen pages respectively.  Now that I’m developing a pretty good data-base of authentic-text sentences, teaching grammar a lot more effective, I hope.


“But what does this have to do with appositives?” I can hear you ask with a growing tone of exasperation in your voice.  “Get on with it already!”  For the next couple of weeks, I’m going to be doing some TOEFL prep with my students.  One very common structure used in Part II of the TOEFL test is reduced adjective clauses.  For several years now, I’ve been promising my students that I would make something to teach these beasts, but coming up with enough good examples seemed impossible...UNTIL NOW, thanks to my iPad.


After several days of pounding on my keyboard (I almost put‘typewriter.’  Man, I’m old.), inputting seemingly hundreds of sentences (at least thirty pages, anyway), rereading them specifically for adjective clauses, copying them to new, specific lists for adjective clauses, reduced clauses and appositives, and finally re-copying and re-organizing them by type of appositive (Hoo-whee that was fun.), I have a good list of approximately ninety sentences to work from.  (Kids, don’t try this at home.)


Though it all, I feel like I have a much better understanding of appositives and can answer some nagging questions that I and many others have had.  If you haven’t already given up and gone back to Facebook, here is what I’ve learned about appositives.

Go to Part I

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*Like when your wife, who didn't want you to "waste money on another toy," spends so much time using your iPad that the battery is dead when you get home from work every day.


**Books Referenced
Game Change by John Heilemann an Mark Halperin.  (Amazon Kindle price - $9.99)

• This is a really interesting history of the 2008 Presidential election in the U.S., in which Barack Obama became president.  It was great to relive the excitement and learn a lot of fascinating behind-the-scenes stuff.

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  (Amazon Kindle price - $12.99)

• If this book were fiction, you would throw it away thinking "This is so implausible."  However, it is a very detailed account of a juvenile delinquent who becomes an Olympic athlete (shaking hands with Hitler), and a soldier who survives unbelievable hardships.  I couldn't put it down.  Very good reading.

Over the Edge of the World by Laurence Bergreen.  (Amazon Kindle price - $10.99)

• This book is a fascinating, thoroughly researched account of Magellan's voyage around the world. Much of the narrative is based on detailed first-hand accounts by Antonia Pigafetta, one of the few men to survive the circumnavigation.  This book filled in so many blanks left in traditional high school textbooks and taught me many things I had no idea of.  If you like history, you'll love this book.