Understanding clauses
Dahlia Bartley, Contributor

Today we will do more work on clauses as you need to understand the difference between the subordinate and the main clause. This is important because if you are to improve your writing style, you must practise to use sentences with different patterns. In addition, your understanding of phrases and clauses will aid punctuation.

First, you must understand the following:

• The difference between phrases and clauses
• Types of phrases
• Types of clauses
• Types of sentences

By now you should be able to identify a sentence, a phrase and a subordinate clause (you may want to review last week's lesson). I hope you are clear in your minds as to the purpose of each and will use them appropriately. I am asking that you concentrate as you write.

Full stop

Once you have written a complete thought, in other words, once you have written a sentence, you must put a full stop at the end of it. Meanings become unclear if there are no full stops.

I know that your teachers have introduced you to main (independent) clauses and subordinate (dependent) clauses, so today's lesson, for many of you, should be a revision of what you have already done in school. Bear in mind that a knowledge of clauses is useful as your ability to identify these will help you to find the main ideas in passages when you are doing summaries and comprehension.

Now, the main clauses or independent clauses can, by themselves, be sentences, for example:

Mary asked her teachers for homework.

After the team's success, I planned a function to celebrate the occasion.

Please note the number of finite verbs in each sentence (you should also observe the position of the subject in each sentence. The placement of the subject helps us, as writers and speakers, to create a variety of sentences).

Sometimes a sentence may have more than one clause. However, when the clauses are not complete sentences and they cannot stand alone, the clause is dependent. Look at the following sentence:

While I cleaned the room, Laurel prepared dinner.

Here there are two clauses:

While I cleaned the room and Laurel prepared dinner

The main or independent clause is Laurel prepared dinner; the subordinate or dependent clause is While I cleaned the room. If a friend of yours came up to you and said 'While I cleaned the room' then walked off, wouldn't you be confused? Of course, because you would be expecting to hear more.

Subordinate clauses

The words do not form a complete thought - that is, the words do not constitute a sentence and have to depend on the main clause Laurel prepared dinner to make sense. Some subordinate clauses are introduced by a subordinating conjunction such as since, when, because, if, as, or by relative pronouns such as that, which, who, whom, whose.

Let's look at another sentence:

Students who want to do well must study hard.

Can you identify the main clause and the subordinate clause? The main clause is Students must study hard and the subordinate clause is who want to do well. You should have noted that for variety, the main clause may assume different positions in sentences.

For homework, identify the main clauses in the following sentences:

1. 2008 was a good year for our athletes.

2. My brother, who now teaches in a small college, will visit us tomorrow.

3. While you were in the shower your mother called and the postman left you a package.

4. I will lend you the newspaper, but you will have to use it now.

5. Sit down!

6. The lady who was holding my bag is a friend of my sister.

7. Can you hear me?

8. I watched in awe as the house went up in flames.

9. This is the passage which my mother asked me to read.

10. The girl who won the competition will visit us next week.

I will close with a quotation I came across recently.

- Education is only a ladder to gather fruit from the tree of knowledge, not the fruit itself. Interesting, isn't it? Make sure to spend your time wisely at school.

See you next week.

Yvette Smith (second left), principal of St Hugh's High School, and Olympian Aleen Bailey (second right), march with students around the school compound in St Andrew recently. - Contributed

Dahlia Bartley teaches at Glenmuir High School.