English 10 / Unit 10: Grammar: Clauses, Sentence Structure and Punctuation
10.1 Independent and Dependent Clauses
Notes
A clause is a group of words with a subject and a verb.
- An independent clause expresses a complete thought and can stand alone: The storm ended.
- A dependent (subordinate) clause cannot stand alone. It begins with a subordinating conjunction (because, although, when, if, since, while, unless) or a relative pronoun (who, whom, whose, which, that).
- Example: Although the storm ended (dependent), the roads stayed flooded (independent).
- A phrase lacks a subject-verb pair: after the storm.
Practice
Which group of words is an independent clause?
It has a subject and verb and expresses a complete thought.
In "Since Maya studied all week, she passed the exam," the dependent clause is:
"Since" makes the clause dependent.
Which word can begin a dependent clause?
"Although" is a subordinating conjunction; the others are coordinating.
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