Question

Identify each italicized subordinate clause as a noun clause, an adjective clause, or an adverb clause.

Washington played by the river when he was young.


noun clause
adjective clause
adverb clause

Answer 1

Even though posts on OpenStudy do not allow italics, I can see by reading the sentence that the subordinate clause is 'when he was young'. So ask yourself this, "what function is the clause performing in the sentence?"

There are three types of subordinate clauses: noun clauses, adjective clauses, and adverb clauses. These three clauses are closely related to their one word counterparts, the noun, adjective, and adverb. A noun clause can be the subject of the sentence, the object of the sentence, a subject complement, and adjective complement, or an object of the preposition just like a noun. For example:

Noun (subject)
JOE impressed his teacher.
Noun clause (subject)
WHAT JOE WROTE impressed his teacher.
Noun (object)
Joe's teacher did not realize SOMETHING.
Noun clause (object)
Joe's teacher did not realize THAT JOE COULD WRITE BACKWARDS.

Can you see in each set of examples that the noun clause is easily being substituted for the the noun in the previous sentence? Lets look at adjective clauses. Adjective clauses perform the same function as adjectives; that is to say they modify a noun. Here are some examples:

Adjective
Joe was given a BIG assignment.
Adjective clause
The assignment THAT JOE WAS GIVEN is due tomorrow.

Can you see how in the first sentence BIG is modifying assignment and how THAT JOE WAS GIVEN is modifying assignment in the second sentence? If you are having a hard time seeing that, think of it this way: Read the first sentence and then ask yourself, "What kind of assignment?" Your answer should be "a big assignment". Now read the second sentence and ask yourself, "which assignment is due tomorrow?" Your answer should be, "the one that Joe was given."

Now look at the adverb clause. you might be saying, "Wait, I get it now. An adverb clause performs the same function as and adverb; it modifies a verb." Well, sort of. An adverb clause is slightly different than an adverb in that adverb clauses show a relationship, cause and effect for example:

Adverb clause
SINCE HE BROKE HIS FINGER, Joe could no longer write backwards.
Joe could no longer write backwards, SINCE HE BROKE HIS FINGER.

So identifying an adverb clause is not as straight forward and the other two types of clauses, but it is still not that hard, you just have to know what to look for. An adverb clause will always meet three conditions.

1. It will always have a subject and a verb ('he' and 'broke' in the above example).
2. It will always have a subordinate conjunction (This means a word that keeps it from being a complete thought. In the above example, 'he broke his finger' is a complete thought, but add the subordinate conjunction since at the beginning and it no longer is and independent clause).
3. It will always answer one of these three questions: How? When? Why? (In the above example: "When could Joe no longer write backwards?" Since he broke his finger.

So I bet NOW you can figure out what type of clause you have in your question.