Understanding Sentences: Clauses

1
Understanding SentencesClauses

• presented by
• Emanuel Hughley Jr.
• assistant professor English and Journalism
• Cuyahoga Community College.
• Eastern Campus

2
Building a sentence

• To build a sentence, a writer uses phrases and
  clauses as building blocks.
• Unlike a phrase, a clause is a group of related
  words that contains a subject and predicate.
• Two kinds of clauses independent and dependent
  or subordinate.

3
Independent clauses

• Each independent clause expresses ONE complete
  idea.
• Can be used alone as a simple sentence.
• Can be combined with other clauses to form other
  types of sentences.

4
Independent clauses

• Example Climbing Mount Everest was his lifelong
  ambition.
• How many complete ideas does this sentence
  express?
• One.

5
Dependent clauses

• Contain subject and predicate, but do not
  express a complete idea because they begin with a
  subordinating conjunction.
• See textbook for a list of subordinating
  conjunctions.
• After Before Because
• Although though as soon as
• Unless eventhough while
• That which who (rel. pro)

6
Dependent clauses

• Because they cant express a complete idea by
  themselves, dependent clauses must be joined with
  an independent clause or some other related words
  to express a complete idea.
• Dependent clauses function in sentences as
  nouns, adjectives or adverbs.

7
Dependent clauses

• Noun clause Whoever wrote this paper should
  pursue graduate study in African history.
• Who should pursue graduate study?
• Whoever wrote this paper.
• Whoever wrote this paper is a noun clause.
• This clause answers the questions Who? What,?
  Whose? or To whom?

8
Dependent clauses

• Noun clause The White House knows that military
  spending is out of control.
• What does the White House know?
• That military spending is out of control.

9
Dependent clauses

• Adjective clause The surgery was performed by
  the surgeon who developed the procedure.
• Which surgeon performed the surgery?
• The surgeon who developed the procedure.
• This clause answers the questions Which one? How
  many? What kind?

10
Dependent clauses

• Adverb clause Jessica paints more carefully
  than I usually do.
• How much more carefully does Jessica paint?
• More than I usually do.
• This clause answers the question Why? When?
  Where? How?

11
Dependent clauses

• Recognizing dependent clauses is important for
  two reasons.
• Enables you to avoid making the mistake of
  writing a sentence fragment.
• You can learn to use them to add variety to your
  sentence structures.