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Verb Phrases
He raised the issue just in order to cause an argument. We turned off the water in order to fix a leak in a pipe.
Exercise 12.6 Underline the adverb infinitive phrases in the following sentences. Confirm your answer by adding in order to the infinitive phrase. in order
You must sell the stock / to get the tax credit for the loss. 1. We ended the interview to save the candidate any further embarrassment. 2. The doctors operated to reduce the risk of infection. 3. We reduced the price to attract a larger market. 4. We made a quick trip back home to pick up some things for the picnic. 5. I wore some heavy pants to protect my legs from the thorns. 6. We acted quickly to minimize the possible damage. 7. We hired a lawyer to file the estate papers. 8. The family made a down payment to ensure that they would have a place to stay. 9. We audited the books to ensure compliance with federal regulations. 10. I smiled to show that there were no hard feelings.
Adverb clauses Clauses are grammatical constructions that contain both a subject and a verb that enter into a subject-verb relationship with that subject. Adverb clauses are dependent clauses that are attached to the main or independent clause as adverb modifiers. While adverb clauses can modify adjectives and other adverbs, the vast majority of adverb clauses modify verbs. This is the only kind of adverb clause we will be concerned with. Compared to adjective and noun clauses, adverb clauses have a simple and uniform structure: an introductory subordinating conjunction a statement—a complete sentence in a statement form. Together, the subordinating conjunction and the complete statement make up an adverb subordinate clause. In the following examples, the subordinating conjunctions are in bold and the complete statements are underlined: