Week 5: CLAUSES

This week, we shall focus on CLAUSES.   A clause is an organized group of English words with a subject and a predicate.  There are two types of clauses:  the main clause and the subordinate clause.  The subordinate clause can be further divided into three sub-classes i.e. the adverbial clause, the relative clause and the nominal clause. 

The difference between a phrase and a clause is that a phrase has only either subject or predicate whereas a clause has both subject and predicate in its group of words.  Thus, we can say that a phrase is smaller than a clause. 

The main clause can stand alone as a complete sentence.   Hence, it is often referred to the independent clause.  Another term for it is principal clause.   In contrast, the subordinate cannot stand alone and therefore we can also refer to it as the dependent clause. 

You can test your understanding of independent (main/principal) and dependent (subordinate) clauses by trying out this online exercise at this website: 
http://depts.dyc.edu/learningcenter/owl/exercises/clauses_ex1.htm