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Clauses

April 10, 2023

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Clauses are like families.April 10, 2023

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A clause is a group of words with a subject and a verb. Remember, we have two kinds of clauses.

Independent clauses—have a subject and a verb and express a complete thought by themselves. They stand alone as complete sentences.

And

Dependent clauses—have a subject and a verb, but DON’T express a complete thought because of the word they begin with.

What are Clauses?

April 10, 2023

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A dependent clause cannot stand alone. A dependent clause on its own is a sentence fragment. A dependent clause must be connected to an independent clause to express a complete idea.

Dependent clauses often begin with a dependent marker.

Dependent Clauses

April 10, 2023

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Some Dependent Markers

After Although As As if As soon as Because Before Even if Even though

Ever since How If Since So that That Though Unless When While

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When a clause starts with one of the dependent marker words, it is usually a dependent clause.

Let’s look at the difference between an independent clause and a dependent clause.

We ate dinner together.

ExamplesApril 10, 2023

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This can stand alone.It is an independent clause (also called simple sentence or main clause.

It has a subject, (we) and a verb (ate) and it expresses a complete

thought.

Independent Clause—I stand on my own.

As soon as we put one of the dependent markers in front of the clause, it becomes dependent because it no longer expresses a complete thought.

*After we ate dinner together…

*Although we ate dinner together…

*Before we ate dinner together…

*Since we ate dinner together…

Dependent Markers in Use

April 10, 2023

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Looks good, but it’s missing something.

Each of these dependent clauses leaves the reader expecting something more.

Each would depend on another clause—an independent clause—to make a sentence.

After we ate dinner together, we watched a movie. After we ate dinner together= dependent clause. We watched a movie= independent clause.

Fixing the Dependent Clause

April 10, 2023

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