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A primary division for the discussion of clauses is the distinction between independent clauses and dependent clauses. [3] An independent clause can stand alone, i.e. it can constitute a complete sentence by itself. A dependent clause, by contrast, relies on an independent clause's presence to be efficiently utilizable.
A set of words with no independent clause may be an incomplete sentence, also called a sentence fragment. A sentence consisting of at least one dependent clause and at least two independent clauses may be called a complex-compound sentence or compound-complex sentence. Sentence 1 is an example of a simple sentence.
Another definition of "sentence length" is the number of clauses in the sentence, whereas the "clause length" is the number of phones in the clause. [ 12 ] Research by Erik Schils and Pieter de Haan by sampling five texts showed that two adjacent sentences are more likely to have similar lengths than two non-adjacent sentences, and almost ...
A clause is often said to be the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. [1] But this semantic idea of a clause leaves out much of English clause syntax. For example, clauses can be questions, [2]: 161 but questions are not propositions. [3] A syntactic description of an English clause is that it is a subject and a ...
In the following example sentences, independent clauses are underlined, and conjunctions are in bold. Single independent clauses: I have enough money to buy an ice cream cone. My favourite flavour is chocolate. Let's go to the shop. Multiple independent clauses: I have enough money to buy an ice cream cone; my favourite flavour is chocolate.
A dependent clause, also known as a subordinate clause, subclause or embedded clause, is a certain type of clause that juxtaposes an independent clause within a complex sentence. For instance, in the sentence "I know Bette is a dolphin", the clause "Bette is a dolphin" occurs as the complement of the verb "know" rather than as a freestanding ...
the form of the verb used is formally nominalised and cannot occur in an independent clause; the clause-final conjunction or suffix attached to the verb is a marker of case and is also used in nouns to indicate certain functions. In this sense, the subordinate clauses of these languages have much in common with postpositional phrases.
English clause elements are the minimum set of units needed to describe the linear structure of a clause. Traditionally, they are partly identified by terms such as subject and object . Their distribution in a clause is partly indicated by traditional terms defining verbs as transitive or intransitive .