In this short video, we'll be discussing complex sentences, specifically complex
sentences that show time order. What is a complex sentence? A complex sentence is a
sentence composed of one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.
If you're not sure what independent clause and dependent clauses are
make sure you review that before you move on. So, the independent clause is
connected to the dependent clause by subordinating conjunctions also known as
a subordinator. Here's an example sentence. "The students went to the
library as soon as the class finished." So the independent clause is "The students
went to the library," and the dependent clause is "as soon as the class finished."
This is the same sentence but with the dependent clause in the front. What is a
subordinating conjunction? A subordinating conjunction is a word that connects an
independent clause to the dependent clause. So, these are some common examples,
'because,' 'when,' 'as soon as, and so on. We're going to be focusing on complex
sentences to show time order . So, these sentences show the order of events or
actions and we use subordinating conjunctions that show time order in
these sentences. So we're going to talk about four different subordinators, 'after,'
'when,' 'before, and 'as soon as,' so we use 'after' with the action or event that
happened first in the sentence. So, for example, "After the students studied, they
went to class." So, the first action is "the students studied," the second action is "they
went to class." We can also write this sentence this way, "The students went to
class after they studied," but the meaning is still the same. The first action is
"they studied" the second action is that "they went to class." We use 'when' with the
action or event that happened first. So for example, "When the students finished
the test, they went home." The first action is "they finished the test," second action is
"they went home," and again we can we write this sentence with the independent
clause first and the dependent second and the meeting is still the same.
We use 'before' with the action or event that happens second. So, 'before' is used a
a little bit differently from 'after' and 'when.' So, for example, "Before the students
took the test, they studied." The first action in this sentence is "they studied"
or "the students studied." The second action is "they took the test." We can also
write it like this. The students studied before they took the test. 'As soon as' is
also a subordinator used to show time order. We use 'as soon as' with the first
action or event to show that the second action or event happened soon after. So,
for example, "As soon as the student arrived home, he ate dinner." So, the first
action is "the student arrived at home," and then right after that the second
action happened, "he ate dinner," and just as with the others, we can use we can write
the sentence like this. "The student ate dinner as soon as he arrived home." And
the order of events is the same whether you put the independent clause first or
the dependent clause first. When we punctuate complex sentences, sometimes we
use a comma but the rules are very specific. Ff the dependent clause is at
the end of the sentence, do not use a comma. So, for example, "The students went
home after they finished the test." We have the dependent clause "after they finished
the exam, no comma here. However, if the dependent clause is at the beginning of
the sentence we do use a comma after the dependent clause. So, for example, using
the same sentence as above, "After the students finish the exam," we have the
dependent clause first, comma, "they went home." So, we only use the comma when the
dependent clause is at the beginning of the sentence.