This connective is sometimes used instead of why after the word reason. It is frequently omitted; as, “The instant he understood my meaning, he obeyed.”
What the Adjective Clause modifies.—The adjective clause may modify a noun used in any relation, a personal pronoun, a pronominal adjective, or any other substantive. Sometimes, instead of modifying any single word, it modifies the thought expressed by the whole of the preceding sentence, or by a portion of it. In such a case the clause is introduced by the relative pronoun which. For example, “They had comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety that they were never either heard or talked of,—which, next to being universally applauded, should be the object of ambition of all ages, magistrates, and rulers.”—Irving. Here the clause modifies that they were never either heard or talked of. In the sentence,—“His body was of an oblong form, particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking,” the clause modifies all of the sentence preceding it.
Sometimes in sentences of this kind the thought to be modified by the adjective clause is summed up in one noun which is used as a part of the clause, while the relative pronoun which becomes a relative adjective modifying the noun; as, “In 1835, Longfellow became Professor of Modern Languages and Belles Lettres in Harvard University, which position he held for fourteen years.”
An adjective clause modifying a whole statement is sometimes placed before that statement instead of after it. The clause is then usually introduced by the pronoun what; as, “What was worse, he every week lost more and more by bad money.”—Jerrold.
Note.—The adjective clause may modify a noun or pronoun in the possessive case; as, “The world is his who has money to go over it.”—Emerson.
Position of the Adjective Clause.—Usually it follows closely the word it modifies, but there is a type of sentence in which the clause modifies the subject and yet comes next to the subjective complement. The following sentence is an example,—“It was coffee and not wine that I drank.”—Howells. It is here a personal pronoun standing for beverage and modified by the restrictive adjective clause that I drank. The sentence means,—The beverage that I drank was coffee and not wine.
Peculiar sentences sometimes arise from this construction; for example, “It is only birds of prey that fear danger from below more than from above.” Here the clause modifies the subject it, and the sentence transposed reads, “It that fear danger from below more than from above is only birds of prey.” This sounds ungrammatical, but it is the interpretation of the original sentence.
In regard to the position of the connective, it is commonly the first word in the clause; but when who or which is object of a preposition, the preposition leads, and sometimes the subject of the clause precedes the preposition and the relative; thus, “The largest class of vessels is the full-rigged ship, the distinctive mark of which is that it has three masts, all square-rigged.” This arrangement of words arises from the objection that some authors have to using whose as the possessive of which. If whose were substituted for of which in the sentence above, the clause would read, whose distinctive mark is, etc.
Sometimes the antecedent of a relative pronoun is omitted, especially if it is a personal pronoun; thus,
“Who drove