Chapter 25 Exercise 7:
Finding Adjective Clauses

Directions: In the following exercise underline the adjective clause. Then highlight the word it modifies.

An item of clothing that is popular among people of all ages is the blue jean.
The first jeans, which were made in 1850, cost $13.50 a dozen!
They were made by a German immigrant whose name was Levi Strauss.
Strauss, who had a dream of success, went to San Francisco during the gold rush.
He took with him several bales of cloth, which he planned to use to make tents.

Question

Chapter 25 Exercise 7:
Finding Adjective Clauses

Directions: In the following exercise underline the adjective clause. Then highlight the word it modifies.

An item of clothing that is popular among people of all ages is the blue jean.
The first jeans, which were made in 1850, cost $13.50 a dozen!
They were made by a German immigrant whose name was Levi Strauss.
Strauss, who had a dream of success, went to San Francisco during the gold rush.
He took with him several bales of cloth, which he planned to use to make tents.

wach · Answer

An adjective names an attribute about a noun, which it modifies. For example, "yellow" in the phrase "yellow duck" modifies "duck" as an adjective. Same thing with "second" in "second place", and "French baguette", etc.

wach · Answer

That said, what adjectives do you see in the paragraph, and what nouns do they modify?

batman19991 · Answer

clothing and blue  jean?

wach · Answer

clothing isn't modified by an adjective. But there are others, like 'German immigrant', and 'first jeans'. 'Gold Rush' is a historical event so I don't think it applies. 

In these phrases, do you see which word is the noun and which one is the adjective?

batman19991 · Answer

no not really i dont understand

wach · Answer

A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea. An adjective is a word that describes some quality of a noun. So, a noun is the thing, and the adjective is the describer. 

Let's look at the sentence "I have a green dog." 
"I" am a person, and thus a noun, but "I" is a special type of noun called a pronoun, because it refers to a subjective of a sentence (doing the action, which is HAVING a dog). For our purposes, "dog" is the noun, because it's an animal, and animals are things. What's our adjective? Since "green" describes the dog, it's our adjective. 

In English, adjectives are right before nouns (usually), so that helps. But adjectives aren't just limited to color - they can be almost anything that describe a noun. Take the following examples: 
first president 
white elephant 
Chinese moon 

Do you see which word in each line is the noun/thing, and which one is the adjective/describer?