Clauses

Clauses
Clauses consist of two or more phrases and, like phrases, form coherent units of meaning.

• A clause tells about action or state (i.e. what a thing is doing or being, e.g. 'He grabbed a brick'; 'She felt ill'.
• Typically, a clause is composed of a noun phrase (acting as subject) and a verb phrase.
• If something is acted upon by the subject, it fills the grammatical object position.

The 'Predicate'

• The predicate is a term sometimes used to describe all of the clause apart from the subject, i.e., it tells what the subject is doing (and to what).
• In the above example, the full grammatical subject is, 'Down by the river as the clock struck one, in a frenzy and with a loud scream, he...' and the predicate is, therefore, '...grabbed the intruder by the scruff of the neck.'
• The structure of any clause, therefore, is subject + predicate.

Phew....! That's an awful lot of grammar to digest for one web page! Fear not - it won't happen again. Time for a breather, then maybe a quick re-read through to make sure it's all sunk in?

You've met clauses, too, but let's take a closer look at four important types of clause:

Independent and Main Clauses
An independent clause stands alone as a sentence, e.g. 'I ate the jelly'.

• The central clause in a longer sentence is called a main clause.
• There are two main clauses (in bold) in this sentence: 
                            I ate the jelly; it wasn't Jo.

Subordinate or dependant clauses
These add information to a main clause (on which they are dependant for their meaning), e.g.

She ate the cake because she is greedy. 

In the above sentence, the subordinate clause, 'because she is greedy' is linked to its main clause by the subordinating conjunction, 'because', the existence of which prevents the clause being a main clause.

There are many subordinating conjunctions in English, some are single words, others are small phrases. Can you find a subordinating conjunction in this next sentence?

'He hit him even though he was his friend'

He hit him	even though he was his friend.
MAIN CLAUSE	SUBORDINATE (or DEPENDENT) CLAUSE