<p>It was not until 1982, the year two major supermarket chains (began) replacing paper bags (with) plastic ones, (when) the use of plastic shopping bags (became) widespread. No Error
Answer is (when)</p>
<p>May you also tell me what the part between the 2 commas is? is it an independent clause or an appositive phrase? like can you explain where is the independent part in this sentence and where is the dependent? i dunno why this sentence mixed me up .
Thanks in advance</p>
<p>Hey there mshQwdy(Won’t try to pronounce that). So, I’m an English instructor here in Brazil- but… more of a “practical English” teacher if you will. Therefore, I’m not really too familiar with grammar topics such as these.
However, I believe the correct structure of the phrase is as follows: “It was not until … that”.
In regards to independent/dependent clauses, I ‘think’ you can distinguish which is which by removing that part within the commas, and seeing if the sentence still makes sense/retains the same idea. Again, I’m not 100% sure, so -our- best move would be to wait for the next commenter to shed some light on it for us! Hahahaha</p>
<p>It’s an appositive, since “the year . . .” renames “1982.” If you think of the sentence as “the year that blah blah” you’ll see that it is a noun phrase followed by a dependent clause.</p>
<p>@WasatchWriter ahaa thank you , but i have got another inquire : by definition a phrase is a group of related words that is used as a single part of speech and that does not contain both a verb and its subject or at least a subject. So how does the part of " the year two major supermarket chains began replacing paper bags with plastic ones" is a phrase though there is a subject (supermarkets) and a verb (began) ??</p>
<p>“the year” = noun phrase
“[that] two major supermarket chains began replacing paper bags with plastic ones” = dependent clause</p>
<p>WOW yaaah finally I understood it !!! just remembered a grade 5 class that these relative pronouns are sometimes omitted . Thanks again (Y)</p>