Adverbial clauses of time
An adverbial clause of timewill indicatewhen an event
happened. Remember that itmustcontain a subject (possibly
‘understood’) and a finite verb.
The traffic started to move whenthe police had cleared
the road.In the above sentence the adverbial clause of time could
stand alone. The subject is ‘police’ and ‘had cleared’ is the
finite verb. The clause tells uswhenthe traffic started to
move.
As the shadow of the moon moved across the sun, it
became very dark.
Whenthe children had left, she cleared up the remains of
the party.‘... the shadow of the moon moved across the sun’ and ‘the
children had left’ are adverbial clauses of time sayingwhen
something happened.
Adverbial clauses of place
Adverbial clauses of placeshowwheresomething took place.
They are often introduced by the word ‘where’.
A flourishing town grew up whereonce a bomb had been
dropped.I can’t remember whereI left my bag.LEARNING ABOUT SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION / 39