Grammar for ielts writing a handbook by David S. Wills Contents

Grammar for IELTS Writing

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35
Clauses
Before reading this section, make sure you fully understand the parts of speech 
(chapter one) and sentence types (chapter five). 
Noun Clauses
To put it as simply as possible, a noun clause is a clause that replaces a noun in a 
sentence. But perhaps it is better to think of it as replacing a subject, object, or 
complement instead. 
Look at this sentence: 
We can eat pizza. 
What’s the subject? We. 
What’s the object? Pizza. 
Now look at this sentence: 
We can eat whatever you want.
In this case, the object has been replaced by a noun clause. Instead of saying 
“pizza” we are saying that we can eat whatever the listener wants to eat. The un-
derlined phrase acts as a noun. More specifically, it is the object of the verb “eat”. 
C H A P T E R
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Why do we Use Noun Clauses?
A noun clause takes the place of a subject, object, or complement because it ex-
presses something that cannot be expressed by a single word noun or short noun 
phrase. The above example illustrates this perfectly. How could I express “what-
ever you want” in one single word? 
Here’s another example: 
What she said inspired me to enroll in university.
Here, the noun clause is the subject of the sentence. It refers to something a 
woman has said to the speaker. There is no way we could capture that in a single 
word noun. 
Let’s take another example:
Steve Jobs was a genius.
In this sentence, “Steve Jobs” is the subject and “a genius” is the complement 
of the verb “was.” However, I could replace the subject with a noun clause: 
Whoever invented the iPhone was a genius.
Here, the subject is “whoever invented the iPhone”. It suggests that we don’t 
know who invented it. This uncertainty is also a reason why we may want to use 
a noun clause. 
Noun clauses, then, are an integral part of the English language. They help 
us express ideas that are more complex than a more basic sentence would allow. 
How to Recognize and Use Noun Clauses
If noun clauses act as a subject, object, or complement, then we should first look 
for the verb in a sentence and ask who is doing it, or what it is being done to. This 
can help us to locate the noun clause. Sometimes, though, we need to instead 
find the preposition, as a noun clause may function as the object of a preposition. 
I wonder why she didn’t come to work today.
You should think about what you want to do next year.