English Grammar for the Utterly Confused - Laurie Rozakis 2003

Overview of Clauses
Chapter 7 Phrases and Clauses
Part 3 Sentence Sense

A clause is a group of words with its own subject and verb. Like phrases, clauses enrich your written and oral expression by adding details and making your meaning more exact. Clauses also allow you to combine ideas to show their relationship. This adds logic and cohesion to your speech and writing.

There are two types of clauses: independent clauses (main clauses) and dependent clauses (subordinate clauses and relative clauses).

• An independent clause is a complete sentence because it has a subject and verb and expresses a complete thought.

• A dependent (subordinate) clause is part of a sentence, so it cannot stand alone.

The following chart presents some examples.