Adjective clause or adverb clause?

Question

The missing eyeglasses are in the refrigerator, where Damien absentmindedly set them down while eating his roommate's leftover fried rice.

Is the bold part an adjective clause or adverb clause?
It seems to me that it's an adjective clause, since it's describing the place where he set the glasses down. What do you think?

NenyaQueen · Accepted Answer

You are correct. The bolded clause is an adjective clause. The clause, taken as a whole, is an adjective describing the noun "refrigerator."

An adjective clause is a dependent clause that, like an adjective, modifies a noun or pronoun. Adjective clauses begin with words such as that, when, where, who, whom, whose, which, and why.

http://www.k12reader.com/term/adjective-clause/

However . . .

Are you sure that you're only identifying one clause? I ask because the bolded words could be taken as two, smaller clauses. If you're certain that you only need to identify the bolded words as one clause, you don't really need to read the rest of my answer. I'm just including the following because I wanted to give you as thorough an answer as possible.

The two clauses would be:

where Damien absentmindedly set them down 
while eating his roommate's leftover fried rice

If you look at it this way, you actually have one adjective clause and one adverb clause.

Clause 1 is an adjective clause because it describes the noun "refrigerator."

Clause 2 is an adverb clause because it describes the adjective clause directly preceding it.

An adverb clause is a dependent clause that, like an adverb, modifies an adjective, an adverb, or a verb or verb phrase. Adverb clauses begin with words such as after, although, because, before, if, since, than, until, when, and while.

http://www.k12reader.com/term/adverb-clause/

A group of words is usually only considered a clause if it contains both a subject and a verb. However, there are exceptions to that rule called "elliptical clauses." Elliptical clauses occur when the noun, the verb, or both are missing but clearly implied, like in Clause 2.

Clause 2 as is: while eating his roommate's leftover fried rice.

Clause 2 with implied subject and verb: while [he was] eating his roommate's leftover fried rice.

Clause 2 is an elliptical adverb clause.

An elliptical clause is a type of dependent, or subordinate, clause that is missing a word or words.

http://www.k12reader.com/term/elliptical-clause/

user405662 · Answer

I am commenting upon this question only because there seems to be no broad consensus about the correct answer as evidenced above. I am fairly certain that the clause under question is not an Adjective Clause (It does make sense to not bill everything that describes or seems to describe nouns adjectives everytime.) At the same time, I am not sure if it's an Adverb Clause either because it doesn't seem to be modifying any verb here.
I am tempted to bill the construction as a supplementary adjunct of sorts, which merely provides extra information about the Principal Clause The missing eyeglasses are in the refrigerator, without having any syntactic anchorage whatever to it. But then I realize this terminology, never mind the logic behind it, is well beyond my ken.
Anticipating a definitive answer to this question.
Could you please shed some light on this one, @BillJ? Apologies for notifying you like this.

Adjective clause or adverb clause?

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