Which can be omitted

BillJ BillJ That's more concise. Bottom line is: you were correct in your examples and we all agree that most of the time the "that" can be omitted. Good night! Nick Nick 2, 5 5 silver badges 13 13 bronze badges. Okay, they're "technically" appositive clauses if I recall; however, relative clauses and appositive clauses are so similar that it would be pedantic to try to distinguish them herein, especially to someone learning the language.

That's like my calling it an orange and your saying, "It's a kumquat". Now, you're trying to make a distinction without a difference above, which will only confuse her. No, they are not 'appositives' at all, but content clauses sometimes called that clauses , which function as complements.

There is a big and very important difference between content clauses and relative ones, which must be made clear to learners. The only likely confusion is that caused by confusing the two different kinds of clause. Okay, you win. I'm not going to argue. Regardless of whether it be called an appositive, or relative, or content clause, in the matter above, as well as my examples, the "that" can be omitted. She got her answer; it can be omitted.

That's all that she wanted. Featured on Meta. Now live: A fully responsive profile. Forums English Only English Only. JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Thread starter pisso Start date Apr 28, For details, see Participles Placed Just after their Noun , 4. This means, first of all, that omission is possible if the next word is not an adjective.

In h , for example, which were would be omissible before a preposition phrase, for example …in France. Describing words that can follow an adjective, enabling BE to be dropped, may begin with a preposition like in above , or that e.

Expanding an Adjective with Words after it. According to the rule above, the circumstance where which are in i must be kept is when high is not being described by any words after it. There may be no describing words at all i. Placing an Adjective after its Noun , 3. Complements are nouns or adjectives that special link verbs equate to an earlier noun or equivalent. In sentence a , for example, difficult is a complement equated by the verb BE to its subject problem.

For a fuller discussion of subject and object complements, see Features of Complements. There are at least two situations where BE is omissible before a subject complement.

One is extensively described elsewhere in this blog Exotic Grammar Structures 2 , 4 , so is only considered briefly here:. In this sentence type, a comma separates two closely linked statements. The second starts with a possessive adjective their referring to the subject of the first, followed by a noun, the omissible BE, and the complement of the noun invisible. If BE was present, it would need -ing because it is not the main verb in the sentence see When to Write a Full Stop.

The other situation where BE is omissible before a subject complement is when it is in the to form after certain verbs. With object complements, the condition for BE becoming omissible is similarly the choice of the verb. Tricky Word Contrasts 1 , 3 :. The object here is the world , and the object complement is a copy of reality. All of them can also be used in the passive voice, so that their object becomes their subject, and the object complement becomes a subject one, but still with an optional to be.

Grammar errors are likely in this area because many verbs whose object can be followed by a complement-like noun or adjective either require mention of to be or forbid it — they do not allow a choice about it. Verbs that cannot ever have to be before their object complement are of two kinds.

Tricky Grammar Contrasts 3 , 3. Words with Unexpected Grammar 2 , g and h. The other verb kind requires as instead of to be. Grammar Problems in Quotation Writing.

For further examples, see BE is omissible from passive bare infinitives expressing an instantaneous event, like this:. Dropping BE in such cases may be more common than keeping it. When it is present, being seems more likely than be.