(1) “Being newly from a land where everything, morally and materially, was in good repair, I rioted sentimentally on the picturesque ruin, the pleasant discomfort and hopelessness of everything about me here.”—Howells. The clause here is restrictive, used to point out a certain land, and where is equivalent to in which.
(2) “Dr. Livingstone, a Scotchman, spent many years in exploring Central Africa, where he finally perished.”—Here the clause is equivalent in meaning to an independent proposition, where meaning and there, but nevertheless it has the structure of a dependent proposition.
Exercise 10
Select local clauses in the following sentences, telling what each clause modifies, what it denotes, and its connective:
1. We knew that we were standing at a time of high and palmy prosperity, where he had stood in the hour of utmost peril; that we saw nothing but liberty and security where he had met the frown of power; that we were enjoying everything where he had hazarded everything.—Webster.
2.
Where’er a human heart doth wear
Joy’s myrtle wreath or sorrow’s gyves,
Where’er a human spirit strives
After a life more true and fair,