Adjectival and Adverbial clauses and phrases

Question

The book answers the most obvious, the most important, yet the most difficult, question about history: why history unfolded so differently on different continents.
Is ‘why history unfolded so differently on different continents’ an adverbial clause? ( a prepositional clause with an adverbial usage)
Are ‘the most important’ and ‘ yet the most difficult’ both adjectival phrases?

Deadrat · Accepted Answer

AnonymousIs ‘why history unfolded so differently on different continents’ an adverbial clause?

No, it's an appositive to "question." That is, it restates what the question is.

AnonymousAre ‘the most important’ and ‘ yet the most difficult’ both adjectival phrases?

Yes, they both describe the noun "question."

Anonymous · Answer

Very interesting.
Thank you

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousIs ‘why history unfolded so differently on different continents’ an adverbial clause?

Many grammarians these days call it an interrogative content clause. It's not adverbial.

CJ

Vsuresh · Answer

Hi CJ
Is a content clause otherwise called a noun clause?

CalifJim · Answer

vsureshHi CJIs a content clause otherwise called a noun clause?

As I understand it, a content clause is just one kind of noun clause.

But the topic is even more complicated than that, because the two terms 'content clause' and 'noun clause' come from two distinctly different systems of analysis. 'content clause' comes from a more recent approach to the analysis of English grammar. 'noun clause' is from traditional grammar, which has been in existence for at least 100 years.

(Traditional) noun clauses that are (modern) content clauses are illustrated below.

1. Lucy claimed that Sam had robbed a bank.
2. Elizabeth was shocked by the claim that Sam had robbed a bank.

The content clauses above are declarative content clauses. It's also possible to have interrogative (3) and even exclamatory (4) content clauses. (A traditional grammarian might classify the clause in 3 is an indirect question rather than a noun clause.)

3. Paula didn't know whether Sam had robbed the bank.
4. Janet told me what a dangerous adventure that was.

Another kind of (traditional) noun clause is called (in more recent terminology) a fused relative construction:

5. Florence was amazed by what Sam had done.

I'm not an expert at all this terminology, and different sources may give different names to these grammatical phenomena, so you'd have to do some research to get into any greater detail about these things.

CJ

Vsuresh · Answer

CJ
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation.

Adjectival and Adverbial clauses and phrases

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