An adverbial clause is a

dependent clause A subordinate clause, dependent clause, subclause, or embedded clause is a clause that is embedded within a complex sentence. For instance, in the English sentence "I know that Bette is a dolphin", the clause "that Bette is a dolphin" occurs as t ...

that functions as an

adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering q ...

. That is, the entire clause modifies a separate element within a sentence. As with all clauses, it contains a

subject Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *''Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective cons ...

and predicate, though the subject as well as the (predicate) verb are omitted and implied if the clause is reduced to an adverbial phrase as discussed below.

Adverbial clause versus adverbial phrase

Adverbial clauses

An adverbial clause begins with a subordinating conjunction—sometimes called a trigger word. In the examples below, the adverbial clause is italicized and the subordinating conjunction is bolded: :Mary, the aspiring actress, became upset as soon ''as she saw the casting list''. ::(subject: ''she''; predicate: ''saw the casting list''; the clause modifies the verb ''became'') :Peter, the drama teacher, met with Mary ''after she calmed down''. ::(explicit subject: ''she''; predicate: ''came to the next class.''; predicate (verb): ''came''; the clause modifies the verb ''met'') :We left ''before the speeches ended.'' ::(adverbial clause; contains subject and predicate) According to Sidney Greenbaum and Randolph Quirk (''Greenbaum'' and ''Quirk'', 1990), adverbial clauses function mainly as adverbial

adjuncts In brewing, adjuncts are unmalted grains (such as corn, rice, rye, oats, barley, and wheat) or grain products used in brewing beer which supplement the main mash ingredient (such as malted barley). This is often done with the intention of cutt ...

or disjuncts but differ in syntax from

adverbial phrase In linguistics, an ''adverbial phrase'' ("AdvP") is a multi-word expression operating adverbially: its syntactic function is to modify other expressions, including verbs, adjectives, adverbs, adverbials, and sentences. Adverbial phrases can be divi ...

s and adverbial prepositional phrases, as indicated below.

Adverbial phrases

Unlike adverbial clauses, adverbial phrases contain neither an explicit subject nor a predicate. In the examples below, the adverbial phrase is italicized and the

adposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...

is bolded: :Mary, the aspiring actress, became upset ''as one of the casting list rejects.'' :Peter, the drama teacher, met with Mary ''after seeing her disappointment''. :We left ''before the speeches.''

Types

Adverbial clauses are divided into several groups according to the actions or senses of their conjunctions:

References

External links

Adverb Clause

Grammar Syntactic categories