Clauses: A Hunka Hunka Burning Love

Ah, Valentine's Day. A holiday about relationships. About independence. And that makes me think of clauses....

My last post set out the difference between clauses and phrases. Now we are going to narrow our focus somewhat and only look at clauses. In fact, we are going to try to separate all the clauses there are into just two categories. You may ask, "So why is there a picture of Elvis?" Don't worry, I'll explain.

There are a bunch of different ways to categorize anything, and clauses are no different. However, for our purposes all you really need to know is that there are two kinds of clauses in this class: independent and dependent (aka subordinate).

Both independent and dependent clauses are clauses (duh), so they must, by definition, contain both a subject and a verb. "Independent clause" is actually just a fancy name for a simple sentence, in fact, and as you remember from the school house ballad of Mr. Morton, simple sentences contain both a subject and a verb.

However, Mr. Morton's song doesn't point out the following fact: not everything that has a subject and a verb is a sentence. In order for a group of words to be a sentence, it must also be able to stand alone.

If this were an equation, it might look like this:

Subject + verb= clause

and then

Subject + verb + a complete thought = simple sentence = independent clause

Here's an example: "Elvis was processed into the Army at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas." Here's another: "Fort Chaffee is just outside Fort Smith." Simple, huh?

So, now that you know that independent clauses CAN stand alone, you've probably already figured out the following: A group of words with a subject and a verb that CANNOT stand alone (in other words, a groups of words that doesn't express a complete thought) is a dependent (or subordinate) clause.

Here are a couple of examples: "Because Elvis had to get a buzz cut." And: "Even though Elvis's buzz cut made his female fans cry." See how they can't stand alone. It's like waiting for the other shoe to...well, you know...drop.

The nuts and bolts of it are not complicated: something has been added to our basic simple sentence, and the addition of this one thing is what makes the dependent clause incapable of standing on its own. That addition?
A subordinating conjunction. It's like having a cast added to your leg: suddenly, you can't stand on your own. You need crutches. Same sort of thing.

Think of it this way: dependent clauses can't function on their own... just like a subordinate in the army relies upon the commands of his or her superiors. And this gets us back around to why this post contains a photo of one of the most famous US Army privates in history, Elvis Presley. He might have been the King, but he was still a subordinate in the army, and just like any private, when he was told to do something, like shave his hair, he followed orders. Privates depend upon commanders, and dependent clauses depend upon independent clauses.

And so this really has all been about relationships: dependent clauses need to be connected to independent clauses. Ahhhhh....

Superbowl Weekend! Clauses vs. Phrases! And the crowd...goes...wild!

Okay, so you might not go "wild" at the thought of comparing CLAUSES and PHRASES, but hopefully you will be sort of interested in them. One good reason to be interested in clauses and phrases is that they are two very basic types of groups of words, and understanding the differences between these two groups of words will give us a good foundation for going on to discuss all kinds of grammar errors writers make every day.

So, here we go:

Phrases are groups of words that lack a subject and a verb. There are all kinds of them; one of the most common is the "prepositional phrase," which functions as either an adjective "the dog in the laundry room" or as an adverb "knocked over the can of paint before turning over the trash can."

You can see from these phrases that even though phrases sometimes contain words that look like verbs (verbals), upon closer inspection the phrase itself has no verb. Likewise, the phrase has no subject. Here's a link to a great website that explains what phrases are and how they work.

As you can see if you keep reading that website, clauses are groups of words that do contain a subject and a verb. In fact, in order for a group of words to be a clause, it must contain both a subject and a verb. Here's a link to a little song that should explain everything you'll ever need to know about subjects and verbs. (I love school house rock. It makes me feel like everything is right with the world.)

Here's a clause: "Mr. and Mrs. Morton moved in together." And another: "Because they got married." See? Each of those clauses has both a subject and a verb. Simple.

Here's a clause: "After the wedding." And another: "To share a love of gardening." And another: "Traveling by public transit." No subjects, no verbs. So, not clauses.

Well, that's enough for today. If you have trouble differentiating between phrases and clauses, you can look in your St. Martin's Handbook. Good luck!