An adverb clause (or adverbial clause) is a clause that works as an adverb in a sentence. Its role is to show place, time, condition, degree, and so on, by answering questions like “where?”; “when?”; “how?”; and “why?” Just like an adverb, it modifies other parts of a sentence to add more details.
Like all clauses, an adverb clause has a subject and a predicate. However, an adverb clause is a dependent clause—so, it can never be a sentence on its own. Specifically, an adverb clause is a modifier that modifies the independent clause.
As mentioned, adverb clauses answer questions like where, when, why and how. Here, the adverb clauses are underlined:
In each example, the underlined adverb clauses modify the independent clauses (in green) in the sentence. For instance, the adverb clause “wherever they have carrots” modifies the clause “you will find the rabbit.”
Notice the underlined adverb clauses are not complete sentences. An adverb clause is dependent, so it always needs to be connected with an independent clause to make a full sentence!
Like all clauses, adverb clauses have a subject and a predicate. In addition, they almost always begin with a subordinating conjunction.
A subject is the person, place, idea, or thing that a sentence is about. It’s the noun that is “doing” something in a clause or sentence. Sometimes a subject is only one word, but sometimes it includes modifiers, or can be a noun phrase or gerund.
A predicate holds the action—it tells what the subject does. Often the predicate is just a verb, but it can also be a verb phrase: a verb plus its objects or modifiers. Here are three examples of different types of predicates in clause:
A dependent marker word (also called a subordinating conjunction) is a word that adds details like time or context. Most adverbial clauses start with a subordinating conjunction. Here’s a list of the most commonly used subordinating conjunctions:
Most adverb clauses also include objects. An object is the word affected by the verb or preposition in a sentence, usually nouns or pronouns that answer questions like “who,” “what,” “where,” and “when?” Look at these examples, with the objects underlined:
The rabbit ate carrots. What did the rabbit eat?
The rabbit hopped into a hole. Where did the rabbit hop into?
You can see that the underlined objects answers the questions. In the first example, “carrots” is affected by the verb ate, because they get eaten. In the second, “a hole” is affected by the preposition into.
Adverbial clauses are very useful in sentences, and there are many types that express different things: location, time, reason, condition, degree/comparison, concession, and manner, among others. Here is a chart to help you understand the different types of adverb clauses.
Types of Adverb Clauses" width="955" height="1022" />
There are a few important things to remember about using adverb clauses:
If you remove an adverb clause, the sentence should still be grammatically correct, like this:
The rabbit didn’t stop hopping until he got back to his hole. Complete sentence
Remove the adverb clause:
The rabbit didn’t stop hopping. until he back to his hole. Complete Sentence
