Reduced Adjective Clauses

In previous lessons, you have learned that adjective clause is a subordinate clause that modifies noun or pronoun. Look at the examples below:

Here are two sentences:

• Samnang is a teacher. He teaches at a university.

We can rewrite as:

• Samnang is a teacher who teaches at a university.

If you want to change this style of writing, you can also rewrite as:

• Samnang is a teacher teaching at a university.

In the last sentence "Samnang is a teacher teaching at a university.", "teaching at a university" is an adjective phrase reduced from the adjective clause "who teaches at a university".

There are some basic rules applied when you want to reduce the adjective clauses, as:

1. Omit the relative pronoun

You can omit the relative pronoun from the adjective clause when it is the object (A good rule to remember: If the word after the RP is a verb, you must have the RP there. If the word after the RP is not a verb, you probably don’t need it. ) 

For examples,

• I will talk to a consultant. I met him at a party.
• I will talk to a consultant whom I met at the party.
• I will talk to a consultant I met at the party.

• We will start our project soon. We finalized it last week.
• We will start our project which we finalized it last week soon.
• We will start our project we finalized it last week soon.

However, you can't delete in this sentence.

• We can't finalize the project yet. It is very complicated.
• We can't finalize the project which is very complicated yet.
• We can't finalize the project very complicated yet.

2. Reduce an adjective clause to a participle phrase

Adjective clauses can often be reduced to phrases, but the relative pronoun (RP) must be the subject of the verb in the adjective clause.

a. delete RP + BE

For examples,

• The university that are investing on human resources will sustain in the future.
• The university investing on human resources will sustain in the future.

• The dean who was appointed yesterday graduated in the UK.
• The dean appointed yesterday graduated in the UK.

b. delete RP + (Auxiliary Verb) and change the Verb to VERB-ING

For examples,

• The students who do more research at home perform a lot better.
• The students doing more research at home perform a lot better.

• The students who experienced real working environment also learn faster.
• The students experiencing real working environment also learn faster.

3. Reduce an adjective clause to a prepositional phrase

Adjective clauses can often be reduced to phrases, but the relative pronoun (RP) must be the subject of the verb in the adjective clause.

For examples,

• Did you see the book that is on the table?
• Did you see the book on the table?

• She hasn't finished her paragraph which is about her best friend yet.
• She hasn't finished her paragraph about her best friend yet.

4. Reduce an adjective clause to an appositive

For examples,

• You who are students should plan about your future jobs.
• You students should plan about your future jobs.

• Piseth, who is a curriculum developer, has been working very hard.
• Piseth, a curriculum developer, has been working very hard.