Reduced Adjective Clause

In previous lessons, you have learned that adjective clause is a subordinate clause that modifies noun or pronoun. Look at the examples below:

Here are two sentences:
  •  Samnang is a teacher. He teaches at a university.

We can rewrite as:
  •  Samnang is a teacher who teaches at a university.

If you want to change this style of writing, you can also rewrite as:
  •  Samnang is a teacher teaching at a university.

In the last sentence "Samnang is a teacher teaching at a university.", "teaching at a university" is an adjective phrase reduced from the adjective clause "who teaches at a university".


REDUCTION METHODS

There are some basic rules applied when you want to reduce the adjective clauses, as:

[1] Omit the relative pronoun

You can omit the relative pronoun from the adjective clause when it is the object (A good rule to remember: If the word after the RP is a verb, you must have the RP there. If the word after the RP is not a verb, you probably don’t need it. )

For examples,
  •  I will talk to a consultant. I met him at a party.
  → I will talk to a consultant whom I met at the party.
  → I will talk to a consultant I met at the party.

  •  We will start our project soon. We finalized it last week.
  → We will start our project which we finalized last week soon.
  → We will start our project we finalized last week soon.

However, you can't delete in this sentence.
  •  We can't finalize the project yet. It is very complicated.
  → We can't finalize the project which is very complicated yet.
  → We can't finalize the project is very complicated yet.

[2] Reduce an adjective clause to a participle phrase

Adjective clauses can often be reduced to phrases, but the relative pronoun (RP) must be the subject of the verb in the adjective clause.

a. delete RP + BE

For examples,
  •  The university that are investing on human resources will sustain in the future.
  → The university investing on human resources will sustain in the future.

  •  The dean who was appointed yesterday graduated in the UK.
  → The dean appointed yesterday graduated in the UK.

b. delete RP + (Auxiliary Verb) and change the Verb to VERB-ING

For examples,
  •  The students who do more research at home perform a lot better.
  → The students doing more research at home perform a lot better.

  •  The students who experienced real working environment also learn faster.
  → The students experiencing real working environment also learn faster.

[3] Reduce an adjective clause to a prepositional phrase

Adjective clauses can often be reduced to phrases, but the relative pronoun (RP) must be the subject of the verb in the adjective clause.

For examples,
  •  Did you see the book that is on the table?
  → Did you see the book on the table?

  •  She hasn't finished her paragraph which is about her best friend yet.
  → She hasn't finished her paragraph about her best friend yet.

[4] Reduce an adjective clause to an appositive

For examples,
  •  You who are students should plan about your future jobs.
  → You students should plan about your future jobs.

  •  Piseth, who is a curriculum developer, has been working very hard.
  → Piseth, a curriculum developer, has been working very hard.