Let's talk about clauses in this video.
A clause is a major part of a sentence.
It can also be a sentence by itself, but
we can also combine multiple clauses
into a larger sentence. And the
trick here is that we always need a
subject and a verb. So as long as we have
a subject and a verb, then we have a
clause. And we can add some extra
information as well, as we'll see, but
these two things are really essential.
Now there are two kinds of clauses: there
are independent clauses--clauses that can
stand by themselves as a complete
sentence--and there are dependent clauses.
We'll talk about both of these. So
dependent clauses cannot be a sentence by
themselves.
We'll start with independent clauses
here. So if you look at these examples, the
first one reads, "Canada's Prime Minister
likes taking selfies." And this one has a
verb, it has a subject who is doing the
action, and then it has some extra stuff.
In this case we have a direct object and
we have an object complement in "selfies."
So that's the first one. The second
one reads, "the 2017 Super Bowl remains one
of the most spectacular comebacks in
sports history."
So here again we have a main verb, and
then if we ask who or what remains, we
get to "the 2017 Super Bowl" -- that's our
subject, and then we have an object as
well. Again, the direct object is not
crucial--it's just the case that
these two sentences follow this pattern.
And then this one ends with a couple of
prepositional phrases which i'm going to
put in brackets because they're not
really essential. So we have "of" --there's our
preposition. "The most spectacular
comebacks"--that's the object of the
preposition. And then our second
prepositional phrase is "in sports
history." And "in" is the preposition, and
"sports history" is the object of
the preposition. So as you can see, you
can have quite a lengthy clause, but not
all of it is essential,
and so you have to make sure you
separate the clauses from the phrases,
(and we'll have a separate video about
phrases) to get at
the core of what the clause actually is.
Next we'll have a look at dependent
clauses. So if we look at this example
here, it says, "If you visit the Coromandel
peninsula, you should go to Hot Water
Beach."
So the first part here, "if you
visit the Coromandel peninsula" ...
this is a dependent clause. It still has
a subject and a verb, so "you visit" ... "you"
is the subject, "visit" is the verb. But in
this case you could not have this as a
complete sentence, and that's because of
this conjunction, "if." So "if" is a
subordinating conjunction.
And as a result of this, the whole clause
becomes dependent. The second clause is
independent ("you should go to Hot Water
Beach"), and you can hear that that can be a
sentence by itself. So if you have a
dependent clause, you always need to
attach it to an independent clause, and
you do that usually by means of a
conjunction. We'll talk about one other
way to do it as well in a moment.
The next sentence here reads, "I
visited the Coromandel peninsula, but I
did not go to Hot Water Beach." Now it
sounds like this second one here is a
dependent clause: "but I did not go to Hot
Water Beach." [This] cannot stand by itself as a
complete sentence. But this is a little
bit different here because "but" is a
coordinating conjunction. And there are
seven of these. You may remember the
FANBOYS: and, but, nor, for, or, so, and,
yet. And when you have a coordinating
conjunction, you do not include it as
part of the clause that it sort of goes
with. So if you try to determine is this
dependent or not, ignore it for
determining if the clause is independent
or dependent. So a coordinating
conjunction often comes between two
independent clauses, and we do not
include
it as part of this particular clause. I
know that's a little bit confusing, but
it's really crucial to determine if the
claus is dependent or independent. The
last thing we want to focus on here is
these connecting words that tie the
dependent clause to the main clause. So
there are two kinds: there are
subordinating conjunctions and then
they are also relative pronouns, and we
haven't mentioned these quite so much. So
when you have a relative pronoun and you
use it at the beginning of a dependent
clause, then that clause can be called a
relative clause.
Don't worry though, this is still very
much a dependent clause, so if you want to
call it a dependent clause, that's
totally fine. But there's one thing to
watch out for, and I'll show you this
through an example. So let's say
the sentence reads, "I
love Kim who appreciates my
knitting." Maybe you want your knitting
skills to be loved by somebody.
So we have "love" in the first part--
this is the verb. "I" is the subject. And
you can see that this first little bit
is definitely an independent clause--it
can be a complete sentence by itself.
Kim is the direct object here. Then we
start with our relative pronoun, and this
one introduces a dependent clause. So
this whole last part cannot stand by
itself. But notice what's happened here,
so we still have our verb, "appreciates."
But who is doing the appreciating? Well,
it's "who."
So the subject here is the relative
pronoun, and that's kind of unique about
relative pronouns, that they are both the
connecting word and often they're the
subject as well. So that tends to confuse
people quite often. And it's quite
frequent that you start with this kind
of short little independent clause, and
the dependent clause can often be much
longer.
So don't go by length--it's really the
function that determines which kind of
clause you're dealing with.
That's it for clauses--dependent and
independent. Try to do the exercises on
the website to get better at
distinguishing them.