Question

Identify the type of subordinate clause in the following sentence:
The house that I live in belongs to my father.
a. Adjective clause
b. Noun clause
c. Adverb clause
d. Preposition clause

Answer 1

Hint: Recall the definition of all the types of clauses given in the option and then check it with the sentence.

Complete answer:
A clause is defined as a part of a larger sentence containing a subject and a predicate, of its own.
A Principal Clause is an independent clause that can exist even without a subordinate clause.
A Subordinate Clause is called a dependent clause because it cannot exist without the help of the principal clause. It begins with a subordinating conjunction.

In this sentence, 'The house belongs to my father' is the principal clause and 'that I live in' is the subordinate clause, because the latter phrase has no meaning of its own or we can simply say that ‘that I live in’ can not be considered as a standalone sentence, unlike ‘That house belongs to my father’.

The subordinate clause in the given sentence qualifies the subject 'the house' in the category of principal clause, thereby acting as an adjective. Hence, it becomes a subordinate adjective clause.

So, Option a, becomes correct and the other three options cancel out, automatically by following the rules we talked about above.

Note: Clause is a group of words which contains BOTH subject and the predicate, but may or may not be a complete grammatical sentence in certain exclusive cases. A lot of students mistake the two for each other and end up giving wrong answers.