Both restrictive clauses and nonrestrictive clauses are types of relative clauses (or adjective clauses), which act as adjectives in sentences to describe nouns or pronouns.
- Restrictive clauses give essential identifying information about the nouns they modify. They often answer the question “which one?” If they are removed from a sentence, the meaning of the sentence is changed or becomes unclear (e.g., “Apples that are picked too early are sour”).
- Nonrestrictive clauses give extra, nonessential information about the nouns they modify. They can be removed from a sentence without changing its meaning or making it unclear (e.g., “Apples, which are my favorite fruit, are high in fiber”).
Nonrestrictive clauses are set off from the rest of the sentence by commas. Restrictive clauses should not be set off by commas.
Continue reading: What is the difference between restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses?
Nonrestrictive clauses are used to give extra, nonessential information about a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase (e.g., “The summer Olympics, which take place every 4 years, will be in Paris”).
Unlike restrictive clauses, which are used to identify people or things, nonrestrictive clauses are typically used to give additional information about particular people or things. So, they are frequently used with specific nouns (e.g., “my mom,” “the new teacher,” “your house”) rather than general nouns (e.g., “kids,” “the man,” “books”).
When a relative clause is used to describe a proper noun (e.g., “David,” “Prospect Park”), a nonrestrictive clause is almost always used.
Continue reading: Why are nonrestrictive clauses used?
Nonrestrictive clauses, like all relative clauses (or adjective clauses), begin with a relative pronoun, typically “which,” “who,” “whom,” or “whose” (e.g., “I want to vacation in Majorca, which is part of Spain”).
The relative pronoun “that” is only used with restrictive clauses, never with nonrestrictive clauses.
Nonrestrictive clauses are set off from the rest of the sentence by commas.
Continue reading: Which word signals a nonrestrictive clause?
To identify a misplaced modifier, it is important to understand which word(s) in a sentence a modifier is describing. If the modifier is far away from those words, it likely needs to be moved closer.
Example:
“Running away with its tail between its legs, the child laughed after frightening the dog.”
In this sentence, the subject of the modifying clause “Running away with its tail between its legs” clearly refers to the dog, but another subject, “the child” is squeezed between the clause and what it describes.
Better phrasings would be as follows:
- “The child laughed after frightening the dog, which ran away with its tail between its legs.”
- “Running away with its tail between its legs, the dog had been frightened by the child, who laughed afterward.”
Continue reading: How can I identify a misplaced modifier?
A squinting modifier, also known as an ambiguous modifier, is a modifier that could possibly modify two different parts of the sentence.
The following sentence has a squinting modifier:
“Paolo works in a restaurant serving shrimp.”
In this sentence, it is unclear if Paolo’s specific job is serving shrimp in a restaurant or if the restaurant is dedicated specifically to shrimp.
This can be clarified as either of the following two sentences:
- “Paolo works serving shrimp in a restaurant.” [indicating that Paolo serves shrimp]
- “Paolo works in a restaurant that serves shrimp.” [indicating that the restaurant serves shrimp]
Continue reading: What is a squinting modifier?
A dangling modifier is a modifier that does not have a subject within the sentence. In contrast, a misplaced modifier does have a subject, but the modifier and the subject being modified are separated.
The following sentence has a dangling modifier:
“Eager to leave the room, the presentation ended early.”
In this sentence, there is no subject indicating who was eager to leave the room.
In contrast, this sentence has a misplaced modifier:
“My mom gave the food to the dog that we wouldn’t eat.”
The placement of the modifier “that we wouldn’t eat” makes it seem as if it is modifying “the dog” instead of “the food.”
A clearer structure would be the following:
“My mom gave the food that we wouldn’t eat to the dog.”
Continue reading: What’s the difference between dangling and misplaced modifiers?
Subject-verb agreement for compound subjects can seem complex, but there are two basic rules to keep in mind.
For compound subjects connected with “and,” a plural verb is almost always used (e.g., “Carlos and Elise go to the same school”).
For compound subjects connected with “or” or “nor,” the verb agrees with whichever noun is closest to it (e.g., “Either my parents or my sister picks me up from school” or “Either my sister or my parents pick me up from school”).
Continue reading: How does subject-verb agreement work with a compound subject?
Yes, a compound subject can be used in a simple sentence—a sentence that has only one subject-verb pair (e.g., “Terrence and I like to hike).
Compound subjects can be used in all sentence types (i.e., simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex).
When you’re writing with different types of sentences and sentence subjects, the QuillBot Grammar Checker is a quick and easy way to proofread.
Continue reading: Can a compound subject be used in a simple sentence?
A sentence contains at least a subject and a verb and expresses a complete thought.
A sentence fragment is usually missing a subject, a verb, or both (e.g., “Wondering what to cook for dinner”).
In some cases, a clause might have both a subject and a verb, but also a subordinating conjunction. This makes it a dependent clause on its own, which is a sentence fragment (e.g., “After the second Act”).
A simple question to ask yourself to test if you have a sentence fragment is whether the clause contains a complete thought. If it does, then there is probably no problem.
Continue reading: What is the difference between a sentence and a sentence fragment?
Sometimes it might take some rewriting to make a sentence fragment better. Rearranging the clauses and adjusting the punctuation can fix a sentence fragment:
- I missed the game on Saturday. Because I had broken my foot.
- Because I had broken my foot, I missed the game on Saturday.
In some cases, you may need to add a missing subject:
- Went shopping.
- I went shopping.
In other cases, you might need to add a subject and a verb:
- Running through the park in the early morning.
- I love running through the park in the early morning.
Continue reading: How can I fix a sentence fragment error?
