Question:- Which sentence contains a restrictive clause
A. They decided to meet where the band was performing.
B. The children, sweaty and miserable, piled into the bus.
C. They put the baby, who was fast asleep, in his crib.
D. The girls, overwhelmed by the sale, bought many shoes.
E. The child, who was now wailing, ran toward his mother.
Answer: A. They decided to meet where the band was performing.
A restrictive clause is indispensable to the sentence’s meaning. It restricts or qualifies the noun it modifies. A restrictive clause includes necessary information that identifies or limits the noun it refers to. It cannot be deleted from the sentence without changing it altogether. Generally, restrictive clauses do not have any punctuation marks such as commas placed around them.
In sentence A the restrictive clause ‘where the band was performing’ is dependent on this meaning. It identifies the exact location that “they” choose to meet, limiting its scope to only that space. Without the clause “where band was performing,” this sentence would not make as much sense, and we would lose vital information.
The other choices have no real restrictive clauses. The dependent clauses in those sentences give additional, non-essential information that is not necessary for the core meaning. For instance, in Sentence C the phrase “who was fast asleep” only gives an additional description of the baby . That sentence would not lose its meaning if it were without that clause.
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