Tag Archives: Noun clauses

Sweet tooth (Ch4) Noun clauses

NOUN CLAUSES

1. A noun clause is a part of a sentence that acts like a noun.

Look at this sentence: “I know that he is angry“. Often noun clauses begin with ‘that‘ or ‘what, who, why, when and how‘. The example sentence could be re-written as ‘I know it.’

2. There is an example of a noun clause in this extract from Sweet tooth (Ch4). Can you find it?

Puzzled, Wendy turned and met the woman’s stare. ‘A raven!’ thought Wendy. ‘That’s what she looks like – a raven.’

(The correct answer is ‘….what she looks like’)

3. Here are some more sentences. Can you find the noun clauses in them?

a. I can’t remember where I left my phone.

b. I know who knows the answer.

c. I understand what you are saying but I don’t agree.

d. I forgot when we planned to meet.

e. I don’t know why you don’t like Manchester United.

f. We discussed who the best person for the job was.

g. What you said was correct.

h. I don’t understand how you got that answer.

4. Try to make some noun clauses of your own by completing these stems

a. I know what…

b. I don’t know where…

c. I can’t remember when…

d. I understand that…

 

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Grammar for The Piper

Look at our new very short story called The Piper in the section called ‘FLASH FICTION’.

Think‘, ‘know‘, ‘feel‘, ‘wish‘, ‘see‘ and ‘guess‘ are common verbs in English. Often the verbs follow this pattern: SUBJECT +VERB + THAT + NOUN CLAUSE. For example, ‘The piper thought that the man was about fifty years old‘. In this example, the SUBJECT = ‘The piper‘, the MAIN VERB = ‘thought‘, and the NOUN CLAUSE = ‘the man was about fifty years old‘. The subject of the noun clause = the man, and the verb in the noun clause = was.

A. Put these sentences into the correct order.

1. | wished | that he |speak | languages| a hundred | The piper | could

2. | that | The piper | the man | Scottish | guessed | was

3. | felt | a happy | cheer | The piper | that | tune | would | him up

4. | he had | at least | The piper | that | knew | to get |every day | ten pounds

5. | the woman | The piper | gave | saw | him a pound |that

B. Complete these sentences

1. The piper thought that the man was about fifty because…

2. The piper saw that he could stop playing soon because…

3. The piper wished that everyone would give him ten pounds because….

4. The piper wished that he could tell people to run away because….

 

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