An adverbial clause is a

dependent clause A dependent clause, also known as a subordinate clause, subclause or embedded clause, is a certain type of clause that juxtaposes an independent clause within a complex sentence. For instance, in the sentence "I know Bette is a dolphin", the claus ...

that functions as an

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

. That is, the entire clause modifies a separate element within a sentence or the sentence itself. As with all clauses, it contains a subject 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: ''calmed down''; predicate (verb): ''calmed''; 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 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. Some grammars use the ...

s and adverbial

prepositional phrases An adpositional phrase is a syntactic category that includes ''prepositional phrases'', ''postpositional phrases'', and ''circumpositional phrases''. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition (preposition, postposition, or circumposition) as ...

, 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 Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...

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

{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090219024123/http://esl.about.com/library/grammar/blgr_adverbclauses.htm , date=2009-02-19 Grammar Syntactic categories