Independent and Dependent Clauses. There are two major types of
clauses:independentanddependent.One way to differentiate the two types is
to understand that dependent clausesalways supply information to an inde-
pendent clause.That is, they function asmodifiers.Another way is to under-
stand that dependent clauses begin with a word (sometimes two words) that
links them to an independent clause. A clause that begins with one of these
words cannot function as a sentence. Only independent clauses can function as
sentences. Listed in the following table are some of these words:
because if as
until since whereas
although though while
unless so that once
after before when
whenever who whomConsider sentence 3:- Fred went to the market because he needed milk.
This sentence has two major parts. The first part,Fred went to the market,
contains the subjectFredand the predicatewent to the market,so it is a clause.
The second part,he needed milk,also has a subject,he,and a predicate,needed
milk,so it is another clause. Note, however, that the second clause: (a) begins
with the wordbecauseand (b) also explains why Fred went to the market and
provides information of reason to the first clause. Thus, we have two criteria
with which to labelbecause he needed milkas a dependent clause: It begins
with the wordbecause,and it modifies the first clause.
Phrases
Although nouns and verbs provide an adequate classification system for very
simple grammatical analyses, they do not sufficiently account for the fact that
sentences are made up of groups of words (and not just subjects and predicates)
that function together. Subjects, for example, are not always composed of a sin-
gle noun; more often than not they are made up of a noun and one or more other
words working in conjunction with the noun. For this reason, the discussions
that follow use the termphraseregularly.A phrase can be defined as one or
56 CHAPTER 3