Topic 7 (session A) - The grammar of complex sentences > Linking, listing and nesting clauses > Task E > our answer

Linking, listing and nesting clauses

Task E - our answer

In functional terms, 'when it was time for tea' has the same role as 'at tea time' in 'John came round at tea time'. It specifies the time at which John came round, and we can easily substitute the one for the other without changing the overall structure of the sentence. So 'when it was time for tea' is an Adverbial. But it is clearly a clause as well (it has a Predicator 'was' and a SPOCA structure -Cj SPCA), one which is nested inside the main clause of the sentence. Because it is a nested clause which acts as an Adverbial, we call it an Adverbial Clause. We can draw a tree diagram for it as follows:

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