3.2 What is a clause?
The clause is also a group of words, but, unlike the phrase, the clause does have one subject, whether explicit or implicit, and one predicate or main verb. There are two general kinds of clauses: independent and dependent or subordinate. An independent clause makes sense by itself, and can be the main clause or a coordinate clause (because the type of connector they use is a coordinate one) in a multiple-clause or complex sentence. The dependent or subordinate clause does not make sense by itself and depends on an independent clause to complete its meaning; therefore, it is always part of a multiple-clause or complex sentence; for example, I can give you a lift [main independent clause] if you like [dependent clause].
When using the language, especially in the written form, it is important to identify and construct clauses adequately. The more complex and numerous they are within a sentence (our next topic), the more sophistication it is attributed to the use of language. It has even been considered as a unit of language analysis to predict the quality of academic writing, which may have implications for language teaching and assessment, especially within English for Academic Purposes contexts (Li and Yang, 2023), where high levels of sophistication are expected.
LAS Activity 302. Counting clauses
Instructions
- How many clauses do the following complex sentences have? Complete the tables following the example given.
- Once you finish your version, save it as PDF and you'll be able to chek the key to compare your answers. They might not be exactly the same word by word, but they might respect the same principle, that is, one subject and its corresponding verb in each clause.
Example
LAS Activity 302.
- According to this conceptual framework, it is the uses that people have given to language over the years which establish the basis for the form that language takes and the interpretation that is given to texts.
- Therefore, language is what it is because of the use or function that people give it.
- Now, the ‘systemic’ aspect of Halliday’s grammar relies on the fact that its underpinning theory is based on regarding language as a system of meanings and structures, which is arranged in an endless chain of choices.
Broadly speaking, there are two main categories of clauses: coordinate and subordinate. Coordinate clauses are most commonly introduced by the coordinate conjunctions and, but, or, so and yet. Coordinate clauses joined by this type of conjunctions, or connectors, are considered independent clauses. Subordinate clauses are all dependent clauses, as they depend on another clause, the independent one, to make full sense. They are introduced by different types of connectors and can be classified into adverb, noun, and adjective clauses, depending on the type of connection that they have with the main clause.
Instructions: Click on the buttons below to read the information.
Adverb clauses can be classified into time, cause, place, manner, condition and contrast, also depending on the type of connector they are introduced by. For example, time is indicated through connectors such as ‘as soon as’ or ‘while’, although the latter can also be a contrast connector; and examples of cause connectors are ‘because’, ‘since’ and ‘as’, although the last two could also be time connectors. As you can see, there are connectors that can join ideas in different ways, it all will depend on the meaning and context in which they are used.
Noun clauses play the role of a noun in a sentence, that is, they can be either a subject or an object of verb or preposition. Common noun connectors are ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’ ‘why’, ‘how’, ‘whether’ and ‘if’. Except for ‘what’, these connectors could also introduce different types of adverb clauses, as they can connect ideas in that sense, but if the entire clause using the connector is the subject of the sentence that contains it, or the object of a verb or a preposition, then it is a noun clause we are talking about. Other possible noun connectors are ‘whatever’, ‘whenever’ and ‘that’.
Adjective clauses describe a noun, and they are usually placed after the noun they describe, and thus adjective connectors can be words like ‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘which’ and ‘that’, which are words commonly placed after a noun to describe it. Of course, clauses can also be classified into relative, defining and non-defining, and in some other cases you may hear about embedded clauses. For the sake of trying to keep this issue as simple as possible, we will only consider the ones that have been explained for the following activity.
LAS Activity 303. Type of clauses
Instructions
- The following clauses are the ones from the Getting Started activity.
- Choose the correct category. One of them appears twice because it fits into two different categories.
Examples
Type of phrase
Very good! You are ready to continue.
Please, try to answer the exercise again.
Please check the correct answers.
Stop and think What did you take into account to classify the previous clauses? ‘Who I work with’ can be both a noun and an adjective clause. Why do you think this is possible?
Check the answer
One way to classify clauses is taking into account the type of connector (so, and, while, who, etc.) that they have, but in some cases it is also important to consider the role they play in the sentence.
The type of clause for ‘who I work with’ depends on its position in the sentence it belongs to:
If it is after a noun (eg. “The girl who I work with is nice”), it is an adjective clause.
If it is at the beginning of the sentence as the subject (eg. Who I work with is none of your business), after a verb (eg. I’m not telling you who I work with), or after a preposition (eg. He’s worried about who I work with), then it is a noun clause.
Another important aspect about adverb and adjective clauses is that they can take a reduced form, which means that they apparently ‘lose’ the elements that make them clauses, in other words, they do not present a subject and predicate, at least at first sight. However, we will see this special characteristic more in detail in the following section.