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IF YOU WERE ASKED . . . . . . to provide additional information about the pig (see picture) without stating

another sentence what would you say?

A pig kisses a frog.

https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/k/kissing_frogs.asp

The pig turns into a warthog.

Answer : The pig that kissed a frog turned into a warthog.

IF YOU WERE ASKED . . .

https://edutainesl.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/that.jpg

Answer: “A cow that fell in a hole. “ Only a relative/adjective clause can be used as a modifier.

No singe-word adjective can convey the meaning of the clause “that fell in a hole.“

ADJECTIVE CLAUSES ARE IMPORTANT . . . allow speakers to supply a greater amount of information about noun phrases than that

conveyed by single-word adjectives and to avoid wordiness;

. . . have the ability to modify nearly any noun phrase

abstract: The accumulation of evidence led to the cell theory, which states that all living things are composed of cells and that all cells

come from other cells. (Biology, 9th grade)

concrete: Sunshine was streaming through the high windows onto the bent heads, which shone chestnut and copper and gold in the bright

light.

proper: Harry stared at Wormtail for a moment, then back at James, who was now doodling on a bit of scrap parchment.

common

Count: The authors that he mentions are well known.

Noncount: In the cementation process the material in contact with the iron that was to be converted into steel was carbon.

pronouns: Find someone who cares, why don’t you?

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know. (L. Tzu)

clauses: She came to see me, which was nice.

Common Core Standards Conventions of Standard English (grades 4-12)

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.1.A:Use relative pronouns (who, whom, whose, which, that) and relative adverbs (when, where, why).

©2016 Colovic-Markovic

ADJECTIVE CLAUSES

• Relative clauses are introduced by different relativizers. The selection of

revitalizer is determined by the function it performs within the relative clause

and the semantic feature +/- human. The revitalizer can be deleted with many

but not all relative clauses.

Table taken from Colovic-Markovic (in press)

RELATIVE CLAUSES CAN BE CHALLENGING

• Restrictive vs. rich system of relativization:

the ELLs who speak languages that pose restrictions on the type of a noun phrase that can be replaced

by a relative pronoun in the dependent clause (e.g., Indonesian, Malay, Tagalong) may have difficulties

with a rich system of relativization in English.

– Mismatch between the ways in which relative clauses are formed in English and in ELL’s L1

– positioning of a relative clause in relation to the head noun being modified.

Post nominal (English) - prenominal (Japanese, Chinese, and Korean).

– marking of relative clauses.

relativizers (English) - other kinds of markings (Persian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese)

– retention or omission of a pronominal copy within the relative clause.

omission (English) –a single relative clause marker to introduce a relative clause while retaining a

pronominal copy within the clause to refer to the head noun. (Farsi, Arabic, Hebrew, and Turkish)

(Schachter, 1974)



• Reduction of adjective clauses

- English adjective clauses can be shortened. Through the process of relative clauses reduction various structures

are derived:

prepositional phrases (e.g., The participants in the study had an average of 20 years in clinical practice),

appositives (Ivo Andric, a Nobel prize winner, died in 1975),

present and passive participle phrases (People living in cities are often displaced by development projects and A series of salt

basins separated by basement highs were examined in the paper) and

complex pronominal adjective phrases (Monuments made patterns pleasing to the eye).

- No reduction is possible in languages such as Arabic, Chines, Japanese, Korean, Spanish

(Folse, 2014, Swan and Smith, 2001)

• Sematic features of relative pronouns

- English employs who to substitute a noun phrase with the semantic feature +human. Having examined 21 other

world languages, Swan and Smith (2001) found no other language using a relative pronoun for this purpose.



ELLs may . . .

- make errors in production of adjective clauses:

* The book has blue covers is on the table. (various language backgrounds – missing relative pronoun)

*The person which you met lives in the apartment. (Arabic, Russian and others – no distinction between +/- human)

*The book who has blue covers is on the table. (French – relative pronoun is different for subjects qui and objects que)

*The book what I am reading is on the table (French – relative pronoun is different for subjects qui and objects que)

*Mrs. Thomson is the teacher that we like her. (Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew, Turkish – retention of pronominal copy)

*One of the early movies that produced Steven Spielberg was Jaws. (Spanish – subject-verb inversion in adjective clauses)

- avoid using relative clauses for a fear of errors:

various language backgrounds but specifically Chinese, Japanese, Korean

(e.g., Folse, 2014; Swan and Smith, 2001)


ADJECTIVE CLAUSES: INSIGHTS FROM THE RESEARCH

• Providing exposure to and explicit form-focused instruction on relative clauses

may be beneficial to learning of relative clauses:

– direct instruction in one type of relative clauses (e.g., object of a preposition: The girl about

whom you are calling left days ago. ) can sometimes aid in the acquisition of another relative

clause type (e.g., direct object: The book which Ø she dropped is damaged now)

(e.g., Ahlem & Lightbrown, 2005; Gass, 1982; Doughty, 1991)

However, such influence has not been observed for possessive relative clause

structures (e.g., The boy whose hands were caught in a cookie jar smiled. )

– ELL students need guidance in learning the pattern in the formation of genitive

relative clauses separate from other relative clause types (Ahlem & Lightbrown, 2005)

• Helping learners’ observe the differences in relative clause formation between

English and their L1 may facilitate learning of the formal features of English

relative clauses and may enable the learners to avoid transfer errors

(Ahlem & Lightbrown, 2005; Nakamori, 2002)


ADJECTIVE CLAUSES: INSIGHTS FROM THE RESEARCH ON USAGE IN SPOKEN AND WRITTEN ENGLISH

Realtivizers and the relative clauses they introduce have notably different frequency

distributions across the registers as well as different patterns of use.:

• Who, which, and that are used far more frequently than whom, whose, where, when,

and why in both, academic writing and conversation.

• Which is very frequent in academic prose; in fact, in the most frequent relativizer in the

genre. Conversely, it is quite rare in conversation.

• Whom is more common in academic writing than in conversation. In both registers, it is

most frequently used as the object of a preposition and not as the direct object. Most

frequently occurring prepositions with whom are of and with.

• Where is found to be the most common among relative adverbs across both registers.

The structure [preposition + which] was a common substitute for where in academic

prose. (Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, and Finegan, 1999).


FORMAL FEATURES CRUCIAL FOR ACCURACY, LEARNING ABOUT MEANINGS CRITICAL FOR APPROPRIATE USE ESL/EFL students need to understand that . . .

• when employed instead of adjectives, relative clauses tend to place more emphasis on the information about a noun phrase being modified

My compassionate daughter stood up for a friend in a gym class vs.

My daughter, who is compassionate, stood up for a friend in a gym class.

• relative clauses are used to identify and define as well as supply additional information about concepts and entities

– restrictive (e.g., The students who cheat will fail the exam)

• helps identify uniquely a specific referent

• when removed from the sentence, the meaning of the main clause would change.

• utilizes no commas in writing or pauses in speaking for separation from its antecedent.

– nonrestrictive (e.g., My youngest boy, who has curly hair, is a very good swimmer)

• simply supplies additional, descriptive information about the referent that has been previously identified or is assumed to be already known is referred to

• when dropped from the sentence, the meaning of the main clause remains the same.

• requires to be set of from their antecedents by commas (in writing) and special pauses and lower pitch (in speech)


FORMAL FEATURES CRUCIAL FOR ACCURACY, LEARNING ABOUT MEANINGS CRITICAL FOR APPROPRIATE USE. ESL/EFL students need to recognize that, for the purposes of writing, relative clauses can . . .

• add important contextual information

He sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken. The

month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once

driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set,

which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a

large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a

real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it.

(Rawling, J.K. (1997) Harry Potter and the Sorcerous Stone)

• alter reader’s perception of the situation

Voya, who was afraid of the dark, went out alone into the frigid night to search for his runaway puppy.

Sarah, who was allergic to nuts, had a walnut gelato after dinner last night.


TEACHING RELATIVE CLAUSES First steps can include the instruction of the formal features of English relative clauses:

– Demonstrate how a clause becomes incorporated within another superordinate clause as a noun phrase modifier

– Explain that the incorporated clause is placed on the right edge of the noun phrase it describes, and

– Show how the noun phrase in this clause is substituted by a relative pronoun which shares its sematic and syntactic features.

May want to use examples of relative clauses from the texts students read

• Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone, p. 64)

• Roger Williams was a minister in Salem, Massachusetts, who founded the first Baptist church in America. (Creating America: A history of the US,7th grade, p. 79)

Narration:

Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium. The Emporium had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes.

Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes.

Exposition:

Roger Williams was a minister in Salem, Massachusetts. He founded the first Baptist church in America.

Roger Williams was a minister in Salem, Massachusetts, who founded the first Baptist church in America.

nonhuman

subject

human

subject


TEACHING RELATIVE CLAUSES Further steps:

- Direct students to work in pairs/small groups to create new sentences with adjective clauses.

Students may be provided with sentences to embed or asked to create new ones. To facilitate the latter, it may be useful to refer to the content f the students’ reading materials (characters, plot for narrative and reports for expository texts.)

- Engage students in self assessment of their ability to create relative clauses:

Checklist for relative clause formation:

Did I use a relative pronoun/relative adverb?

non-target like: Sally carefully carried a cage held a rare bird.

target like: Sally carefully carried a cage that/which held a rare bird.

Did I use the correct word to start the relative clause? Did I use who for people and which for things?

non-target like: The students which come late to class often receive low grades.

target like: The students who/that come late to class often receive low grades

Did I take out a pronoun after the verb of a relative clause?

non-target like: Mrs. Thomson is the teacher that we like her. .

target like: Mrs. Thomson is the teacher that we like.

Did I omit both the subject and the verb be when reducing the relative clause?

non-target like: The books that sold at the school were affordable.

non-target like: The books were sold at the school were affordable.

target like: The books that were sold at the school were affordable.


TEACHING RELATIVE CLAUSES

Plan to focus on relative pronouns functions as indirect objects and objects of a preposition for a longer period of time that that for subjects.

Math: Mr. Suarez has $2,760 to buy family meals for the local food pantry. What is the greatest number of family meals that he can buy if each meal costs $9?

Social studies: Each Puritan congregation set up its own town. The meetinghouse was the most important building in each town. There people gathered for town meetings, a form of self-government in which people made laws and other decisions for the community.

Language Arts: Ignoring Uncle Vernon’s anguished yell of “OWLS!” Harry crossed the room at a run and wrenched the window open again. The owl stuck out its leg, to which a small roll of parchment was tied, shook its feathers, and took off the moment Harry had pulled off the letter.

(adopted from various textbooks)

Provide guidance in learning the pattern in the formation of genitive relative clauses separate from other relative clause types.

I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather — just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother — why, its brother gave you that scar.”

It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat lawn on the opposite side of the grounds to the forbidden forest, whose trees were swaying darkly in the distance.

(from Harry Potter and the order of Phoenix)



Help helping students identify the ways in which relative clause formation is different between English and their L1

Teaches may ask students to a) explain how relative clauses are expressed/created in their L1; b) list similarities and differences between English and their L1, c) note some possible sources of error (e.g., position of relative clauses, marking of relative clauses, presence of a pronoun copy, features of relative pronouns, etc.).

(Teachers may consult Swan and Smith (2001) for examination of relativization in students'’ L1 to assure students’ comparisons are correct.)

Teachers may engage learners in activities that target transfer errors made by the native speakers of the students L1. One of the activities may be identifying and correcting erroneous English relative clauses in writing such as those listed below:

* The book has blue covers is on the table.

*The person which you met lives in the apartment.

*The book who has blue covers is on the table.

*The book what I am reading is on the table

*Some of the early movies that produced Steven Spielberg were Jaws(1975) and Raiders of the Lost Arch (1981).


TEACHING RELATIVE CLAUSES In a writing class, adjective clauses may be presented as a tool advanced writers use to make their texts better. Teachers can. . .

• Find informational and fictional text passages with instances of relative clauses. Mark the relative clauses as they are reading the text or, for efficiency, conduct online searches using the feature “Find/Investigate.”

• Copy target text segments and remove the relative clauses from the texts. Make individual copies of the excerpts for each of the students. Direct the learners to read the texts carefully.

• Once the students have completed the reading task, show the readings with the relative clauses placed back in their original locations

• Direct the learners to make an explicit comparison between the deconstructed and reconstructed passages by addressing, in pairs or small groups, the following:

(a) what information the relative clauses contribute to the sentences in which they appear; and

(b) how the presence of relative clauses impacts the messages the texts convey.

• To extend the discussion to formal features of relative clauses, the teachers may direct the learners first to state the semantic features +/- human of the relativizers introducing the relative clauses and noun phrases to which they refer and then identify the functions the relativizes in the relative clause.

• To further explore the use of relative clauses, ask the students to refer back to the deconstructed passage to supply their own relative clauses that would be context appropriate. Allow students to evaluate their constructions. Display students' contributions. Share answers with class and address issues, need be.


REFERENCES

References:

Ammar, A., & Lightbown, P. M. (2005). Teaching marked linguistic structures — more about the acquisition of relative clauses by Arab learners of English. In A. Housen & M. Pierrard (Eds.). Current issues in instructed second language learning (pp. 167-198). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Colovic-Markovic, J. (in press). Teaching Relative Clauses in J. Liontas (Ed.), TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching.

Davies, M. (2008-). The Corpus of Contemporary American English: 450 million words, 1990-present. Available online at http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/.

Doughty, C. (1991). Second language instruction does make a difference: Evidence from an empirical study of LS relativization. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 13, 431-469.

Gass, S. (1982). From theory to practice. In M. Hines & W. Rutherford (Eds.), On TESOL ’81. Washington, DC: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.

Hamilton, R. (1994). Is implicational generalization unidirectional and maximal? Evidence from relativization instruction in a second language. Language Learning, 44, 123-157.

Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S., Finegan, E. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. New York: Pearson Education.

Nakamori, T. (2002). Teaching relative clause: How to handle a bitter lemon for Japanese learners and English teachers. English language Teaching Journal, 56(1), 29-40.

Schachter, J. (1974). An error in error analysis. Language Learning. 24(2), 205-214.

Swan, M., & Smith, B. (Eds.). (2001). Learner English: A teacher’s guide to interface and other problems (2nd ed.) Cambridge, England: CUP.

Further readings:

Celce-Murcia, M., & Larsen-Freeman, D. (2016). The grammar book: An ESL/EFL teacher's course (3rd ed.) Boston, MA: National Geographic Learning/Cengage.

Porter, P. & van Dommelen, D. (2005). Read, write, edit: Grammar for college writers. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Folse, K. (2015). )Keys to Teaching grammar to English language Learners. A Practical handbook. Ann Arbor: University Of Michigan Press,


http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/

TEACHING RELATIVE CLAUSES: MAKING COMPARISONS

ORIGINAL (Fiction) It was barely 7:00 in the morning, and Leo had sold almost all of his papers. He jingled his pockets, which were heavy with coins. He thought about the fresh roll that he’d buy for breakfast. .. Leo patted his right-hand trouser pocket and felt the gold nugget that he always kept with him.

Grandfather had found it [the gold nugget] in a riverbed east of here, during the gold rush. He’d handed it down to Papa, who had carried it with him. Grandpop got sick and died before Leo was born. But Papa kept him alive through the stories that he’d tell to Leo. Each night, when Papa was putting Leo to bed, he’d take out the gold nugget.

(Non-fiction: social studies) The basic unit of the commonwealth was the congregation—a group of people who belong to the same church. Each Puritan congregation set up its own town. The meetinghouse was the most important building in each town. There people gathered for town meetings, which was a form of self-government in which people made laws and other decisions for the community. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, only male church members could vote or hold office. They elected representatives to a lawmaking body which was called the General Court, which in turn chose the governor.

(Non-fiction: Biology) Blood (Part F) transports substances throughout the body and thus functions differently from other connective tissues. Its extensive extracellular matrix is a liquid called plasma, which consists of water, salts, and dissolved proteins. Suspended in the plasma are red blood cells, which carry oxygen; white blood cells, which function in defense against infection; and platelets, which aid in blood clotting.

Note: The text above was adapted to include fully realized Relative clauses. As the students learn more about relative clause reduction process, these clauses can be left in the text for practice.

DECONSTRUCTED (Fiction) It was barely 7:00 in the morning, and Leo had sold almost all of his papers. He jingled his pockets. He thought about the fresh roll. .. Leo patted his right-hand trouser pocket and felt the gold nugget.

Grandfather had found it [the gold nugget] in a riverbed east of here, during the gold rush. He’d handed it down to Papa. Grandpop got sick and died before Leo was born. But Papa kept him alive through the stories. Each night, when Papa was putting Leo to bed, he’d take out the gold nugget.

(Non-fiction: social studies) The basic unit of the commonwealth was the congregation—a group of people. Each Puritan congregation set up its own town. The meetinghouse was the most important building in each town. There people gathered for town meetings. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony, only male church members could vote or hold office. They elected representatives to a lawmaking body.

(Non-fiction: Biology) Blood (Part F) transports substances throughout the body and thus functions differently from other connective tissues. Its extensive extracellular matrix is a liquid called plasma. Suspended in the plasma are red blood cells. white blood cells, and platelets.


TEACHING RELATIVE CLAUSES • In teaching ESL/EFL (academic) writing, teachers address the distinction between restrictive and

nonrestrictive relative clauses including the punctuation rules that apply.

Identify academic texts or segments of thereof

• Directed learners first to scrutinize the reading for the frequency of the use of the two types of relative clauses and then to examine and describe what contribution each relative clause, restrictive and non-restrictive, makes to the message of the text.

• Encourage learners to employ relative clauses in their own compositions.

To help them distinguish between the two types of clauses and apply relevant comma rules, learners can be advised to compare relative clauses they produce to a model relative clause.

As they go about evaluating whether or not a relative clause is restrictive or non-restrictive, they ask themselves the question: “Is my relative clause crucial to the meaning of the sentence as who cheat

on their exams is crucial to “The students who cheat on their exams will fail the class.”

positive answer some evidence to conclude that the relative clause in question is restrictive and

does not require to be set off by commas.

negative answer possibly conclude that the relative clause is non-restrictive and, thus, needs

commas to be separated from the main clause.



• In an academic writing classroom, the ESL/EFL teachers can focus on the use of whom as the object of a preposition rather than the direct object, particularly with frequently occurring prepositions such as of and with and the use of where as a logical location as well as its substitute construction [preposition +which].

Corpus-based: activity

• Direct students to search the academic genre section of the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) (Davies, 2008-) on http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/ by entering the phrases of whom and with whom to explore the use of whom in the object of preposition function and the phrases and [n*] [i*] which for preposition + which constructions.

• Select sections

1) search the academic section of the corpus for the query sentence: [n*] [i*] which;

2) review the output to identify the instances in which the construction [preposition +which] can be substituted for where; and

3) report findings to the class.


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