What is a noun modifying clause?

Question

This is actually a question that came up when I was studying Japanese. Unfortunately my grasp of the technical language of syntax is very limited, and I never fully comprehended the idea of a *noun modifying clause*. The phrase given in my Japanese study guide to demonstrate the difference is (without) > I took a photograph. and with > This is a photograph taken by me. Can someone break this example down for me, and perhaps provide a few other examples like this for simple and complex situations (if this even makes sense) to help me understand this construct? It is also possible that the guide has been poorly translated and there is a different name for this. If so, what is it? **Revision** It seems that the question is not entirely clear to some, so although I have my answer I want to add some more information to (hopefully) raise the quality of the question. None of the text above this was edited. The block quoted text is an example lifted *exactly* from a study guide, not from notes taken in a class, and not translated from Japanese. It appears to have been designed to show a reader who does not know what a "noun modifying clause" is is and how to apply it in English, before doing it in Japanese. To clarify, the first block quote is a sentence *without* a "noun modifying clause" and the second is a sentence *with* one.

Answer 1

I'm sorry to say your Japanese study guide is somewhat misleading. I have no idea what it was trying to illustrate in Japanese but in English these two sentences-

I took a photograph.

This is a photograph taken by me.

can be explained as follows.

The first one is a simple sentence in the active voice. S- V- O.

The second sentence is a less direct sentence. "This is a photograph.". It has the BE verb so it's not a S-V- O construction but rather a BE + copula, or BE + noun. Then it has a reduced (shortened) modifying clause (an adj clause that modifies the noun "photograph").

This reduced clause came from the sentence "the photograph was taken by me"- an awkward passive voice sentence. It was reduced by the removal of (the photograph= it= which) was... to form the phrase "taken by me". It's still awkward, but it is a noun modifying phrase or adj. phrase. So we have a photograph.[which was].. taken by me.

Adj. clauses or phrases (reduced clauses) are very common in English. Here are several more examples.

The photograph taken at the park won second prize.

I took a photograph which won second prize.

This photograph was taken from the band shell [which was] built during the war.

The photograph I took at the park band shell seemed to be very popular with viewers.

I hope this helps you understand noun modifier (adj) clauses.