Movable objects: Understanding phrases and clauses

It was the best of sentences, it was the worst of sentences - June Casagrande 2010

Movable objects: Understanding phrases and clauses

A clause is a unit that usually contains a subject and a verb.

A phrase is a unit of one or more words that works as either a noun, a verb, an adverb, an adjective, or something called a prepositional phrase.

Sorry to jump straight into hard-core grammar talk without buying you dinner first. But this really is great stuff for a writer to know. With a firm grasp of phrase and clause structure, you'll start to see sentences almost like Lego sculptures made up of modular, movable, interlocking pieces. This will do great things for your writing. I promise. We saw some of the potential in the last chapter. But the only way to get there is by hunkering down with some serious grammar. As Stephen King wrote, "Grammar is not just a pain in the ass; it's the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking." So stay with me through the academic part, and I'll make it as quick as possible and well worth your while.

Start by noting that a clause, because it contains a subject and a verb, can make up a whole sentence: Jesse dances. Jesse danced. Jesse has danced. Or a clause can be just part of a larger sentence: Jesse has danced the tango with a happily married septuagenarian woman who was wearing Spanx. A phrase, however, cannot stand on its own as a complete sentence. A phrase is a single word or a cluster of words that together work in your sentence as a single part of speech. As we have seen, phrases come in five varieties: noun phrases, verb phrases, adverb phrases, adjective phrases, and prepositional phrases. To get a better understanding of phrases, let's analyze that last Jesse sentence:

Jesse has danced the tango with a happily married septuagenarian woman who was wearing Spanx.

Jesse is a noun phrase. I know it's odd to think of a single word as a phrase. Indeed, that's a little out of sync with the everyday definition. But the Oxford English Grammar includes one-word units as phrases, and for our purposes this works best. Phrases can have phrases within them. So just know that Jesse, Jesse Wilson, Big Bad Jesse, the man called Jesse, and Jesse of Sunnybrook Farm are all noun phrases. Any of them might function as a noun in a sentence. That's what we're concerned with here: their job in a sentence. Every phrase has a headword—the word on which any other words are hinged. So in Jesse of Sunnybrook Farm, Jesse is the headword, and because it's a noun, this is a noun phrase.

Has danced is a verb phrase. It contains the auxiliary has and the past participle danced. Together, they convey the action and when it occurred. They're working as a unit to perform a single job in the sentence.

The tango is another noun phrase. In our sentence, it's the object of the verb, unlike our other noun phrase, Jesse, which is the subject of the verb. Subjects perform the action in a verb. Objects receive the action—they're the things being acted upon. Nouns can do either job. So just see that Jesse and the tango are both nouns—things—in this sentence. They both qualify as noun phrases.

With is a preposition. We'll talk more about prepositions in chapter 9. But for now, remember that these include words like with, of, to, at, in, above, before, and so on. It's crucial to note that a preposition takes an object—usually a noun phrase. The preposition and its object are a team. Therefore, our preposition with has the object a happily married septuagenarian woman. Together, they're our prepositional phrase. Note that the object of a preposition could also be a pronoun: with her.

As we saw earlier, verbs also can take objects. In fact, verbs and prepositions are the only two parts of speech that do this. But not all verbs do. The ones that do are called transitive. So in I see Betty the word Betty is the object of the verb see. In I dance with Betty the word Betty is the object of the preposition with. Both uses of Betty can be swapped out for a pronoun: I see her and I dance with her. Remember that and you'll be far ahead of most people in understanding objects—not to mention prepositional phrases.

Happily is an adverb phrase. But wait a minute, you say. Didn't we already account for happily as part of our prepositional phrase? Yep, we did. However, phrases can be contained within phrases within phrases. So our prepositional phrase with a happily married septuagenarian woman contains other phrases, including the adverb phrase happily, which is modifying the adjective married.

Happily married is an adjective phrase. It contains our adverb and our adjective, and together they work as a unit to modify the noun woman. The noun phrase happily married woman contains the adjective phrase happily married, which contains the adjective phrase married and the adverb phrase happily. They're all modifying woman. Dizzy? Don't worry. Just remember that phrases can work like nesting dolls and you'll be okay.

Septuagenarian is also an adjective phrase. In some cases this word would be a noun—A septuagenarian stole my bike—but here it's modifying the noun woman, so it's working as an adjective.

Woman is a noun phrase.

Who was wearing Spanx is a relative clause. It's a modifier, which means it works like an adjective, adding extra description to the noun that comes before it: woman.

If you find this stuff difficult, that's okay. It is difficult. You don't need to have it all down now. You just need to begin to identify phrases and clauses in your reading and writing. Start looking for them, especially prepositional phrases, which can be the most helpful to a writer and also the most fun, as we'll see in chapter 9. Until then, suffice it to say that prepositional phrases are the key to fully enjoying the supposedly real classified advertisement that once offered for sale "mixing bowl set designed to please cook with round bottom for efficient beating"!

As for clauses, you already have a good foundation for understanding them from out chapter on subordination. So, remembering that a clause usually contains a noun and a verb—a doer of an action and the action itself—can you identify all the clauses in the following sentence?

After Floyd spoke, Lou laughed.

What are the two actions here? There's some speaking going on and there's some laughing going on. Do we have doers of those actions? Yes, Floyd and Lou are the people doing those things. Each is paired up with an action in a way that makes Floyd and Lou subjects of verbs in this sentence. So now that you know what's being done and who's doing it, you can identify the two basic clauses: Floyd-spoke and Lou laughed.

At this point, you can also identify the main clause of the sentence. Thinking back to our chapter on subordinators, remember that after is often a subordinating conjunction and, like all subordinating conjunctions, makes a previously independent clause suddenly unable to stand on its own as a sentence:

Floyd spoke, [complete sentence]

After Floyd spoke . . . [subordinate clause that does not

qualify as a complete sentence]

True, in casual speech and writing, people use fragments as complete sentences all the time. That's why you commonly see stuff like When did L leave? After Floyd spoke. That's fine. But even then, After Floyd spoke is a fragment and not a complete sentence.

Instead of subordinating one of our clauses, we could, if we wanted to, coordinate them:

Floyd spoke and Lou laughed.

The coordinating conjunction and is linking two equally weighted clauses. In fact, these two are so equally weighted that you could swap their order: Lou laughed and Floyd spoke, Floyd spoke and Lou laughed—it's all good. Sure, the meaning is different from our first example, in which Lou laughed only after Floyd spoke. But that's precisely why sometimes you want to subordinate—for the extra meaning you can convey:

Although Floyd spoke, Lou laughed.

Because Floyd spoke, Lou laughed.

When Floyd spoke, Lou laughed.

While Floyd spoke, Lou laughed.

Until Floyd spoke, Lou laughed.

Although Lou laughed, Floyd spoke.

Because Lou laughed, Floyd spoke.

Floyd spoke. Lou laughed.

These demonstrate some of the ways that clauses can be moved around, combined with conjunctions, and made to convey your exact meaning.

A few more things you should know about clauses before we move on: Not all have two words or even a subject. Most commands, for example, contain only an implied subject. Stop! is a complete clause and even a complete sentence because, in English, commands— called imperatives—drop the subject, which is you:

[You] Stop!

[You] Go away!

[You] Run like the wind!

[You] Listen!

Also, in a sentence like Joe wanted to cry, the infinitive verb to cry is considered a clause—called a nonfinite clause because it's not conjugated in a way that shows time. In Joe doesn't like crying, the word crying is also considered a nonfinite clause. Don't worry. These are not need-to-know facts for crafting great sentences. But there's an irony here that shouldn't be overlooked: clauses are defined as units that usually contain a subject and a verb, but they don't always fit their own definition. Still, if you think of clauses in these simplest terms and just remember that there are exceptions, you'll do fine.

Phrases are even more portable than clauses and their placement is even more likely to affect your meaning. We'll see more examples of the power of both these units throughout the rest of this book. For now, begin to think of phrases and clauses as the basic parts of every sentence. Start to identify them. Start to see other ways phrases and clauses could work within the same sentence. And pat yourself on the back for getting through this chapter.

Now let's move on to something fun.