Noun Clause

Many people are fairly comfortable with the idea of nouns, but they might not feel so confident when it comes to the idea of a noun clause. Noun clauses come in a variety of forms; and learning about each form is the best way to understand the concept of noun clauses.



Purpose of a Noun Clause
Noun clauses can be used in a number of ways, and they serve different purposes. First and foremost, please recognize that these clauses are dependent clauses. A dependent clause is one that cannot stand by itself. If a dependent clause is placed alone, it forms a fragment, not a sentence. An independent clause can act as a sentence by itself, but dependent clauses cannot.

Subject of a Verb

A noun clause can act as a subject of a verb, and we will break down what that means after a couple of examples. This clause is acting as the subject of a verb is present in:

• What Alicia said made her friends cry.
• What Megan wrote surprised her family.
• What the man did was not very polite.

When there's a verb in the sentence, you must find the subject. Therefore, in the first we can ask "What made?" and the answer is "What Alicia said." Therefore, "What Alicia said" is the subject of that verb. In the next case, we can ask "What surprised?" and the answer is "What Megan wrote." Do you now see how a noun clause can act as a subject of a verb?

Object of a Verb

In the same vein, noun clauses can also act as the object of a verb:

• She didn't know that the directions were wrong.
• He didn't realize that the stove was off.
• They now understand that you should not cheat on a test.

Once again, we can use the method of questioning to demonstrate how the noun clause is being used. What didn't she know? What didn't he realize? And what do they now understand? The answer in all three cases is the noun clause!

Subject Complement

Let's pick up the pace a little bit, and let's see if you can figure out how these noun clauses are actually answers to questions within the sentence.

• Carlie's problem was that she didn't do the wash.
• Harry's crowning achievement was his 4.0 GPA.
• Darla's television was a 60 inch screen.

Once again, do you see what questions these noun clauses answer and how they relate to the subject? What was Carlie's problem? What was Harry's crowning achievement? What was Darla's television? Without these clauses, the sentences would not be complete thoughts grammaticaly, nor would they sound complete at all.

Object of a Preposition

Noun clauses also act as objects of a preposition.

• Harry is not the provider of what Margie needs.
• Josephine is not resposible for what Alex decided to do.
• Allie is the owner of that blue car.

Once again, Harry is not the provider of what? Josephine is not responsible for what? Allie is the owner of what?

Adjective Complement

Last but not least, a noun clause can also act as an adjective complement.

• The group is happy that Meg returned home.
• The child is sad that his stomach hurts.
• The family is excited that they bought a new house.

One more time with feeling: Why is the group happy? Why is the child sad? Why is the family excited?

Selecting a Type of Noun Clause

Using noun clauses in everyday speech is a fairly common practice, as noun clauses add often crucial information to sentences. However, learning to differentiate between the various types can be difficult.
If you're in a position where you have to decide which form the noun clause is taking, consider the options carefully, and consult a grammar guide if you need additional assistance.

Relative clauses - non-defining relative clauses

Relative clauses add extra information to a sentence by defining a noun. They are usually divided into two types – defining relative clauses and non-defining relative clauses.

Non-defining relative clauses

Look at this sentence.

• My grandfather, who is 87, goes swimming every day.

‘who is 87’ is a non-defining relative clause. It adds extra information to the sentence. If we take the clause out of the sentence, the sentence still has the same meaning.

Look at some more examples.

• The film, which stars Tom Carter, is released on Friday.
• My eldest son, whose work takes him all over the world, is in Hong Kong at the moment.
• The car, which can reach speeds of over 300km/ph, costs over $500,000.

Non-defining relative clauses add extra information to sentences.

Defining or non-defining?

Remember that defining relative clauses are used to add important information. The sentence would have a different meaning without the defining relative clause.

• I’m going to wear the skirt that I bought in London. The defining relative clause tells us which skirt.
• The skirt, which is a lovely dark blue colour, only cost £10. The non-defining relative clause doesn’t tell us which skirt – it gives us more information about the skirt.

Non-defining relative clauses can use most relative pronouns (which, whose etc,) but they CAN’T use ‘that’ and the relative pronoun can never be omitted.

• The film, that stars Tom Carter, is released on Friday.

Non-defining relative clauses are more often used in written English than in spoken English. You can tell that a clause is non-defining because it is separated by commas at each end of the clause.

The difference between defining and non-defining relative clauses

A defining relative clause identifies or classifies a noun:

Do you know the guy who is talking to Will over there?
I wrote my essay on a photo which was taken by Robert Capa.

If we omit this type of clause, the sentence does not make sense or has a different meaning:

Do you know the guy? (which guy?)
I wrote my essay on a photo. (what kind of photo?)

A non-defining relative clause adds extra information about a noun which already has a clear reference:

The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci, who was also a prolific engineer and inventor.

If we leave out this type of clause, the sentence still makes sense:

The Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci. (we know who Leonardo da Vinci was)

Sometimes, the use of commas marks a difference in meaning:

The athletes who failed the drug test were disqualified. (defining) 
The athletes, who failed the drug test, were disqualified. (non-defining)

The defining relative clause tells us that only those athletes who failed the drug test were disqualified. The sentence implies that there were other athletes who did not fail the drug test and that they were not disqualified.
The non-defining relative clause tells us that all the athletes (mentioned earlier in the context) failed the drug test and that all of them were disqualified.
related to this topic, check out our e-book The Grammaring Guide to English Grammar.

Noun Clause

Many people are fairly comfortable with the idea of nouns, but they might not feel so confident when it comes to the idea of a noun clause. Noun clauses come in a variety of forms; and learning about each form is the best way to understand the concept of noun clauses.

Purpose of a Noun Clause

Noun clauses can be used in a number of ways, and they serve different purposes. First and foremost, please recognize that these clauses are dependent clauses. A dependent clause is one that cannot stand by itself. If a dependent clause is placed alone, it forms a fragment, not a sentence. An independent clause can act as a sentence by itself, but dependent clauses cannot.

Subject of a Verb

A noun clause can act as a subject of a verb, and we will break down what that means after a couple of examples. This clause is acting as the subject of a verb is present in:

• What Alicia said made her friends cry.
• What Megan wrote surprised her family.
• What the man did was not very polite.

When there's a verb in the sentence, you must find the subject. Therefore, in the first we can ask "What made?" and the answer is "What Alicia said." Therefore, "What Alicia said" is the subject of that verb. In the next case, we can ask "What surprised?" and the answer is "What Megan wrote." Do you now see how a noun clause can act as a subject of a verb?

Object of a Verb

In the same vein, noun clauses can also act as the object of a verb:

• She didn't know that the directions were wrong.
• He didn't realize that the stove was off.
• They now understand that you should not cheat on a test.

Once again, we can use the method of questioning to demonstrate how the noun clause is being used. What didn't she know? What didn't he realize? And what do they now understand? The answer in all three cases is the noun clause!

Subject Complement

Let's pick up the pace a little bit, and let's see if you can figure out how these noun clauses are actually answers to questions within the sentence.

• Carlie's problem was that she didn't do the wash.
• Harry's crowning achievement was his 4.0 GPA.
• Darla's television was a 60 inch screen.

Once again, do you see what questions these noun clauses answer and how they relate to the subject? What was Carlie's problem? What was Harry's crowning achievement? What was Darla's television? Without these clauses, the sentences would not be complete thoughts grammaticaly, nor would they sound complete at all.

Object of a Preposition

Noun clauses also act as objects of a preposition.

• Harry is not the provider of what Margie needs.
• Josephine is not resposible for what Alex decided to do.
• Allie is the owner of that blue car.

Once again, Harry is not the provider of what? Josephine is not responsible for what? Allie is the owner of what?

Adjective Complement

Last but not least, a noun clause can also act as an adjective complement.

• The group is happy that Meg returned home.
• The child is sad that his stomach hurts.
• The family is excited that they bought a new house.

One more time with feeling: Why is the group happy? Why is the child sad? Why is the family excited?

Selecting a Type of Noun Clause

Using noun clauses in everyday speech is a fairly common practice, as noun clauses add often crucial information to sentences. However, learning to differentiate between the various types can be difficult.
If you're in a position where you have to decide which form the noun clause is taking, consider the options carefully, and consult a grammar guide if you need additional assistance.

Parts of a Sentence: The Noun Clause

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A clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb. Some clauses are dependent: they can't stand alone and need an independent clause, or sentence, to support them.
These dependent clauses can be used in three ways: as adjectives, as adverbs and as nouns. This article focuses on noun clauses.

What is a noun clause?

A noun clause is a dependent clause that acts as a noun.

What words are signs of a noun clause?

Noun clauses most often begin with the subordinating conjunction that. Other words that may begin a noun clause are if, how, what, whatever, when, where, whether, which, who, whoever, whom and why.

What can a noun clause do in a sentence?

Since a noun clause acts as a noun, it can do anything that a noun can do. A noun clause can be a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, an object of a preposition, a subject complement, an object complement or an appositive.
Examples:

How do noun clauses differ from other dependent clauses?

Other dependent clauses act as adjectives and adverbs. We can remove them and still have a complete independent clause left, with a subject and verb and any necessary complements.
That is not the case with most noun clauses. A clause acting as an indirect object or an appositive may be removable, but other types of noun clauses are too essential to the sentence to be removed. Consider these examples:
If we remove these noun clauses, what is left will not make much sense:
That is because, in each example, the dependent noun clause forms a key part of the independent clause: it acts as the subject, the direct object, the object of a preposition. Without those key parts, the independent clauses do not express complete thoughts.
A sentence containing a noun clause is thus the one case in which an “independent” clause may actually need a dependent clause to be complete!

When are commas needed with a noun clause?

Noun clauses may need to be set off by one or two commas in the following situations.

Appositives

An appositive is a noun, pronoun, or nominal (a word or word group acting as a noun) that is placed next to a noun to explain it. For example, in the following sentence, the noun phrase the mayor of Riverton is an appositive explaining who John Allen is:
Noun clauses are nominals and can act as appositives. In that case, they may require commas if they are not essential to the meaning of the sentence:
Here, the words his original statement identify which statement is meant, so the noun clause provides information that is merely additional and not essential.
Compare this sentence to the one below:
In this case, the noun clause is essential for identifying which statement is meant and therefore takes no commas.

Unusual position

Other than appositives, noun clauses do not normally require commas. However, if the clause is in an unusual position, it may require a comma:

Clarity

As the above examples show, we do not normally use a comma for a noun clause acting as subject at the beginning of the sentence, because that is the usual position for a subject. However, a comma may sometimes be needed to prevent misreading:
In the above examples, we use a comma to separate the two identical verbs in order to avoid confusion.