Clauses
Explore how to identify and use different types of clauses including independent, dependent, adjective, adverbial, and noun clauses. This lesson helps you understand how clauses function within sentences to improve clarity and prevent common writing errors such as sentence fragments. You will gain practical knowledge to apply correct punctuation and structure for clearer and more effective communication.
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Introduction
Clauses are groups of related words that contain a subject and a verb. There are two main types of clauses: independent (or main) clauses and dependent (or subordinate) clauses. Dependent clauses have two subtypes, adjective clauses and noun clauses.
When writing, it’s important to be able to identify clauses to avoid sentence fragments and to use parts of speech and punctuation correctly. So, let’s get into it!
Independent clauses
An independent clause, sometimes called a main clause, is a part of a sentence that can stand alone as a complete sentence.
For example, in the sentence, “The black dog ran along the river,” the independent ...