Question

Choose the noun clause and state its purpose in the sentence:
With the leftovers of what she thought to be her meal, she scurried away.
A) With the leftovers of - subject
B) what she thought – object complement
C) what she thought to be her meal – object of a preposition
D) she scurried away - object

Answer 1

Hint:
- A phrase which has a subject and a verb and is in the form of a sentence or a part of a sentence is known as a clause.
- A subordinate clause is the clause which is a part of another sentence.
- A noun clause is a subordinate clause that functions as a noun in a sentence.

Complete answer:
Noun clauses provide answers for ‘What?’. These also include ‘that clause’. They can begin with pronouns (what,which,who,whom,whose), adverbs (when,where,why,how) or conjunctions (if,that,whether). They can behave as subject,object, object complement, object of preposition etc.

Let us analyze the given options:
A and D Incorrect options - Option A and option D begin with preposition and pronoun respectively while a noun clause begins with interrogative pronouns, interrogative adverbs and conjunctions. Therefore they are only phrases and not noun clauses. Thus, they are incorrect options.

B is Incorrect option - While option B does not give a clarity over object complement. An object complement always has to be a noun, pronoun or an adjective. It follows the direct object of the phrase. The direct object in option B is ‘she’ but ‘thought’ is acting as a verb here. Therefore, it is an incorrect option.

C is the correct option - As a noun clause, it begins with the pronoun ‘what’. It fulfills the condition of object of a preposition as the preposition ‘of’ is followed by the noun clause. It also fulfills the subject-verb condition where ‘she’ is the subject and ‘thought’ is the verb.

Therefore the correct answer is option ‘C’.

Note: The concepts related with subject,object, predicate and clauses must be made clear in order to better understand these types of questions. There are two more types of clauses which are relative clauses and adverbial clauses.