An adjective clause is a dependent clause used as an adjective within a sentence. Before doing this exercise, you may find it helpful to review the study sheet Subordination with Adjective Clauses.
Instructions:
The sentences in this exercise have been adapted from a paragraph in Richard Rodriguez's memoir Hunger of Memory (1981). Seven of the sentences contain adjective clauses. Identify these adjective clauses, and then compare your answers with those on page two.
- In the early years of my boyhood, my parents coped very well in America.
- My father, who had steady work, and my mother, who managed at home, were nobody's victims.
- Ambition led them to purchase a home that was many blocks from the poor side of Sacramento.
- This home, which they had worked so hard to own, was only a block from the biggest, whitest houses in town.
- Despite their achievements, the confidence of "belonging" in public was withheld from them both.
- They regarded the people at work, the faces in crowds, as very distant from us.
- They were the others, los gringos, who always spoke too rapidly.
- The English that my parents spoke in public was hesitant, accented, not always grammatical.
- The Spanish language of their Mexican past, which they spoke at home, sounded in counterpoint to the English of public society.
- The Spanish that they spoke with ease was a pleasing, soothing, consoling reminder of home.
