Do you know what a restrictive clause is? This article will provide you with all of the information you need on restrictive clause, including its definition, usage, example sentences, and more!
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Kevin
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January 1, 2022
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Common Questions
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What is a restrictive clause?
According to Grammar Monster, a restrictive clause is a clause that identifies the word it modifies and is not offset with commas. This clause is essential for the understanding of the sentence and the sentence’s meaning. A non-restrictive clause is non-essential. If it is deleted, the meaning of the sentence wholly remains the same and is still an independent clause. These are often offset with commas, parentheses, or brackets. Restrictive clauses are often called “defining clauses,” and non-restrictive clauses are often called “non-defining” clauses. Restrictive clauses could also be called an essential clause since they additional information they provide is crucial to the rest of the sentence. In American English, nonrestrictive clauses are also called a nonessential clause. Both of these are considered types of relative clauses, which are also known as an adjective clause – you can have non-restrictive relative clauses, a restrictive adjective clause that will not use commas, and more. There are many types of modifiers that can be used in a complete sentence or complete thought. A clause is a group of words – in a nonrestrictive sentence, this clause narrows the crucial information in the sentence.
Many different languages also contain words that mean restrictive. You may notice that some of these translations of restrictive look and sound similar to one another. These are called cognates, which are words and phrases in different languages that likely have the same root or language of origin, causing them to sound the same. The below list of translations of restrictive is provided by Word Sense.
- Hindi: प्रतिबंधात्मक (pratibandhātmak)
- Catalan: restrictiu
- French: restrictif
- Thai: จำกัด (jamgàt)
- Italian: restrittivo
- Urdu: مؤکد
- Indonesian: ketat
- Ukrainian: обмежувальний (obméžuvalʹnyj)
- Vietnamese: hạn chế
- Romanian: restrictiv
- Japanese: 限定的 (げんていてき, genteiteki)
- Slovak: obmedzujúci
- Spanish: restrictivo
- Korean: 한정적인 (hanjeongjeogin), 제한하다
- Estonian: piiravate
- Persian: محدود (mahdud)
- Bulgarian: ограничителен (ograničítelen)
- Dutch: beperkend
- Russian: ограничи́тельный
- Hungarian: korlátozó
- Macedonian: ограничителен (ograničítelen), рестриктивен
- Arabic: تَقْيِيدِيّ
- German: einschränkend, restriktiv
- Danish: restriktive
- Roman: restriktivan
- Greek: περιοριστική
- Latvian: ierobežojošus
- Cyrillic: рестриктиван
- Lithuanian: ribojančių
- Czech: omezující, restriktivní
- Slovene: omejevalen
- Finnish: rajoittava
- Belarusian: абмежавальны (abmjéžavalʹny)
- Portuguese: restritivo
- Polish: ograniczający
- Bokmål: restriktiv
- Turkish: kısıtlayıcı
- Mandarin: 限制性 (xiànzhìxìng)
- Latin: restrictivus
- Malay: ketat
What are examples of restrictive clauses?
Take a look at these examples from Grammar Monster:
- How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese? (French President Charles De Gaulle)
- The cousins that I visit every summer were taught a lesson on behavior yesterday.
- Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them. (Poet Paul Valery)
- The farmers in Missouri that hand out the free jam gave me a jar today.
- Given a choice between two theories, take the one which is funnier.
- I live in that solitude which is painful in youth but delicious in the years of maturity. (Physicist Albert Einstein)
- The study shoes that I bought in August are already ripping.
- A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation. (Writer Mark Twain)
- The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. (Philosopher Saint Augustine)
- The man who hit me with his bike gave me an apology.
- I love that I have a job that I love. (Russian skater Ekaterina Gordeeva)
- It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. (President Abraham Lincoln)
- Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. (Writer Edgar Allan Poe)
- Batman can handle sadness and depression. You throw happiness at him? That’s something that riles him. That’s something that he’s not used to. (Author Tom King)
What are other literary techniques and devices?
There are many different literary and grammatical techniques and devices that you might see when you are reading prose or poetry. It is important to recognize these terms because they are always used for some purpose. Knowing these devices can help readers understand the author’s deeper meaning and why they are using such a device. Take a look at the below list of grammatical devices from OED and see how many you know! Then try researching ones that are unfamiliar to you.
- modify | modifier
- plural
- comparative
- combining form (comb. form)
- conditional
- clause
- ellipsis | elliptical
- relative
- article
- neuter
- masculine
- count noun
- cognate object
- direct speech
- head
- intransitive
- impersonal (impers.)
- dual
- to-infinitive
- vocative
- collocation | collocate
- subordinate clause
- main clause
- protasis
- gender
- postmodify | postmodifier
- similative
- compound | compounding
- participle | past participle | present participle
- genitive
- pronoun (pron.)
- auxiliary verb | auxiliary
- cataphoric
- participial adjective
- objective
- modal verb | modal auxiliary verb | modal auxiliary
- phrase (phr.)
- base form
- indicative
- determiner
- mass noun
- nominal relative | nominal relative clause
- main verb
- positive
- imperative (imper.)
- complementary
- second person
- active
- declarative
- finite
- apodosis and protasis
- inflection | inflected | inflectional
- that-clause
- interrogative
- intensifier
- mood
- concrete
- past tense
- personal pronoun
- preposition (prep.)
- direct object
- agree | agreement
- adjective
- gerund
- quasi-
- superlative
- singular
- subject
- non-referential
- indirect question
- optative
- parenthetical | parenthetically
- indirect speech
- apposition
- stem
- unmarked genitive
- bare infinitive
- tense
- reflexive
- anaphoric
- agent noun
- dative
- object | direct object | indirect object
- construction
- interjection
- non-finite
- direct question
- present tense
- suffix
- past participle
- premodify | premodifier
- indirect object
- sentence adverb |sentence adverbial
- subjective
- adverbial | adverbially
- conjunction (conj.)
- element
- predicative
- passive
- person
- causative
- parasynthetic
- noun phrase
- anticipatory
- perfect
- dependent clause
- pleonasm | pleonastic
- demonstrative
- present participle
- verb (v.)
- prepositional passive
- indirect passive
- definite article
- case
- morpheme
- locative
- prepositional phrase
- nominative
- periphrasis | periphrastic
- possessive
- double object
- simple
- phrasal verb
- filler
- combination
- possessive adjective
- third-person
- special use
- prefix
- indefinite
- progressive
- prepositional object
- possessive pronoun
- attributive
- adverb (adv.)
- verbal noun
- noun (n.)
- copular verb | copula
- feminine
- appositive
- part of speech
- proper noun | proper name
- construed (const., constr.)
- common noun
- number
- subjunctive
- instrumental
- zero
- absolute (absol.)
- transitive
- complement
- collective noun
- infinitive
- passive infinitive
- abstract
- accusative
- first person
- pro-form
- antecedent
Overall, a restrictive clause is crucial to the meaning of a sentence.
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