Sentence Basics: Independent or Dependent Clauses (Lesson 6)

Click here for the video lesson.

Several lessons ago, when we talked about prepositional phrases, I said the groups of words that compose a sentence can be divided into two groups: phrases and clauses. Let’s review some terms:

A phrase is a group of words. Phrases can have contain verbs, nouns, modifiers, and connectors, but they do not usually have a predicate and subject. Rather, phrases add detail to clauses. So far, we’ve seen prepositional phrases, and any time we’ve had a verb that required more than one word to express its action (a verb in the past or future tense, for instance), we saw a verb phrase.

Now, let’s start to think about clauses.

A clause is a group of words with a predicate and a subject that work together to express a thought. A clause can have a lot of other parts beside a predicate and subject, but if there’s no predicate and subject, there’s no clause. Clauses, essentially, are units of thought. Clauses come in two basic types:

Independent Clauses
Dependent (also called subordinate) Clauses

Independent clauses are usually defined as expressing a complete thought. If you have a group of words with a subject and verb and you can put it a period at the end of it, it’s an independent clause.

A dependent (or subordinate) clause, meanwhile, is groups of words with a subject and verb that requires more information to be complete. Some dependent clauses help set the scene for another action, and sometimes dependent clauses help complete another thought. 

These definitions give us a good start, but sometimes they feel a little ambiguous, so it helps to recognize some tell-tale clues. Here are a couple hints that might make things clearer to you:

1. Dependent clauses always start with a word that makes them incomplete. The first word tells us the clause depends on the rest of the sentence for its idea. Consider this example:

When I was walking my dog yesterday

The predicate in the example is “was walking.”

Who or what was walking? I. I is the subject. 

We know we have a clause because we a predicate and a subject. That said, if I say this group of words aloud and stop after “yesterday” as if I were at the end of a sentence, my listener is likely to say “What happened?” The first word in this clause, “when,” makes this clause dependent, because it implies that the action in this clause is going to be interrupted by something else. The something else will appear in the independent clause:

When I was walking my dog yesterday, I tripped and scraped my knee.

In the example above, I continued the thought from the dependent clause and added an independent clause to say what happened when I was walking my dog. 

Interestingly, if I omit the first word from the clause as follows:

I was walking my dog yesterday

I now have an independent clause. We could (and later will) have a whole conversation on that -ing verb, but leaving that aside for now, if we omit the word “when,” we have a thought that can stand alone.

2. Dependent clauses often sound like questions or like the answer to a question. This is a corollary to hint number 1. The first word of a dependent clause is often an interrogative word, even though the clause is not actually asking a question. If you consider the dependent clause out of context, though, it might sound like a question. Consider this example:

The little girl wondered where the best seashells could be found.

Let’s pick out main parts.

First, look for prepositional phrases. Lucky for us, there aren’t any.

Then underline verbs.

The little girl wondered where the best seashells could be found.

Next we see if the verbs have subjects.

Wondered. Who or what wondered? The little girl. 

Could be found. Who or what could be found? Seashells.

Both verbs are predicates, and they have two separate subjects, so they are part of two separate clauses. Notice, there is an interrogative word, “where,” before the clause containing “could be found.” That word introduces the dependent clause. “Where the best seashells could be found” sounds like a question that is worded wrong. That is how we know it is dependent. In fact, it is the complement of the verb “wondered.”

The little girl wondered what? Where the best seashells could be found.

Remember, a phrase or clause is a group of words that works together to do a job in a sentence. While each word in our dependent clause has its own job, the entire clause is actually a main part of the independent clause.

Let’s look at one more complex sentence to see how clauses work together.

What the students didn’t know was that there would be a quiz the next day.

We all say things like this all the time without thinking, but when we pause to analyze it, we realize we are masters of complexity without even knowing it.

This sentence has a bunch of verbs close together. In this case, even though “know” and “was” are next to each other, they aren’t part of the same verb phrase. The reason is that “know” can’t be a helping verb, and the main verb of a verb phrase is always the last verb. That means “know” and “was” must be separate verbs. Very tricky.

Didn’t know. Who didn’t know? The students

Was. What was? What the students didn’t know.

Remember how I said a whole group of words can work together in a phrase to do a job? Here, the whole groups of words, “what the students didn’t know,” is the logical answer to the question “what was?”

Would be. What would be? A quiz

I bet you thought “there” was the subject of “would be.” It’s right there! In front of the verb! Except, “there” doesn’t actually answer the question “What would be?” There is a modifier (specifically, an adverb). Whenever “there” appears before a verb, the subject will be after the verb. You can memorize this, or you can slow down, ask the subject question, and think carefully about the logical answer!

We have three clauses in this sentence, because we have three separate verbs with predicates. In a super tricky feat of grammar, the first dependent clause “what the students didn’t know” is the subject of “was,” and the second dependent clause “that there would be a quiz” is the complement of “was,” so both dependent clauses are completely necessary for the independent clause’s meaning.

The first dependent clause, “What the students didn’t know” sounds like a question, starting with “what.” Just like our previous examples, if we omit “what,” we are left with “the students didn’t know,” which can be a complete thought.

The second dependent clause, “that there would be a quiz the next day,” sounds like the answer to a question, beginning with “that.” Again, if we omit “that,” we have a thought that can stand alone: “There would be a quiz the next day.” It’s kind of weird to have the verb “would be” in this sentence, but there are contexts in which it would make sense and stand alone as a thought.

Click here for Exercise 3 to practice picking out main parts and identifying dependent and independent clauses.

Sentence Basics: Pick out Main Parts (Lesson 5)

For the video lesson, click here.
For the handout associated with this lesson, click here.

In the last lesson, we learned about phrases and clauses with a focus on prepositional phrases.

Now that we know how to identify prepositional phrases, predicates, and subjects, it’s time to add the rest of the parts of the clause to our understanding of sentences. To dissect a sentence, I find it is best to ask a series of questions, as opposed to memorizing a set of definitions. You must answer the questions in the correct order, but if you do, you’ll be able to find the main parts of each clause with ease.

First, one more key term: As we know every predicate must have a subject. A verb without a subject is not a predicate. Sometimes predicates also have COMPLEMENTS, words that help finish the thought. There are different grammatical terms for complements after action and linking verbs, which is another of those annoying points of grammar confusion for students. Don’t worry, though. The more you practice, the better you’ll get at spotting and correctly labeling all the predicate’s complements.

Below is a chart that demonstrates the questions you ask to find the main parts. I call this process POMP, or pick out main parts. Use this link to access a PDF of the flow chart to take you through the steps of POMP. At first, you’ll find it helpful to keep the chart handy as you study sentences, but over time the steps will become automatic.

Let’s see how all this works in the first three sentences from Exercise 1.

        S             AV
Jim Gilmore came [to Hortons Bay] [from Canada.] - In this sentence, the only main parts are the subject and verb. Everything else is a prepositional phrase.

 S     AV
He bought the blacksmith shop [from old man Horton]. - In this sentence, when we ask the complement question (“He bought what?”), the answer is “shop” or “blacksmith shop”. Since “bought” is an action verb, “shop” is the direct object. If we’re being super strict grammar guardians, we leave “blacksmith” out of our answer, because technically “blacksmith” is a modifier that tells us what type of shop. That said, in my humble opinion, if you include the whole phrase, you are showing good comprehension of what parts of the sentence go together. There are no more words in the sentence, so there’s no reason to go looking or an indirect object. Indirect objects are more rare than you might think. Often there won’t be one.

 S     LV
Jim was short and dark [with big mustaches and big hands]. In this sentence, when we ask the complement question (“Jim was what?”), our answers are “short” and “dark.” “Was” is a linking verb, and “short” and “dark” are descriptive words, not nouns. That means “Short” and “dark” are predicate adjectives. 

Exercise 1 Revisited: Pick out main parts for the underlined verb in the following sentences. Be sure to ask the questions in the correct order and take your time answering them. You should already have these sentences in your notes, with prep phrases bracketed off and predicates and subjects labeled from previous lessons.

• He was a good horseshoer and did not look much like a blacksmith even with his leather apron on. 
• He lived upstairs above the blacksmith shop and took his meals at A. J. Smith’s.
• Liz Coates worked for Smith’s. 
• Mrs. Smith, who was a very large clean woman, said Liz Coates was the neatest girl she'd ever seen. 
• Liz had good legs and always wore clean gingham aprons and Jim noticed that her hair was always neat behind. 
• He liked her face because it was so jolly but he never thought about her.

Click here to check your work.

Ready for more practice exercises for Picking Out Main Parts? Try your hand at Exercise 2.

LINK TO NEXT LESSON

Sentence Basics: Phrases and Clauses (Lesson 4)

Click here for the video lesson.

Now that we have a good handle on finding predicates and subjects, before we look into additional parts of the sentence, let’s pause to add a few more useful grammar terms into our vocabulary. The groups of words that form sentences can be lumped into two categories: phrases and clauses. 

A clause is a group of words with a predicate and a subject that work together to express a thought. A clause can have a lot of other parts besides a predicate and subject, but if there’s no predicate and subject, there’s no clause.

A phrase is a group of words. Phrases can contain verbs, nouns, modifiers, and connectors, but they do not usually have a predicate and subject. Rather, phrases add detail to clauses. The more complex sentences become, the more likely you are to find predicates hiding in phrases, but we’ll get to those sorts of issues much, much later.

Key concept: Any given word can serve one and only one job in a phrase or clause, but the words in a phrase or clause can all work together to do another job together.

We’re talking about this now because one very common type of phrase often trips students up when they are trying to find the main parts of a sentence. That tricky phrase is called a prepositional phrase. We need to talk about these little buggers now, so we can avoid confusion later.

A preposition is a type of connector, a short word that shows relationships between things. The definition of preposition is a bit vague, and it can be confusing, but some examples will clear things right up. All of the following are prepositions:

in

to

on

of

beside

before

after

through

from

near

against

like

as

for

This is by no means a complete list. I’m sure the internet can furnish you with one. The thing is, you don’t need to memorize a long list of prepositions. You just need to know that prepositions are short words such as in, on, and to, and they show the relationships, in the sense that they locate things in relation to one another. 

I have heard people say you can remember your prepositions by thinking about moving through a house. Let’s give it a try.

You walk along the lane to arrive at the door. You go through the door into the hall. You pass down the corridor to the kitchen. You then walk up the stairs and find the bathroom across the hall. In the bathroom, you look out the window at the yard. You look at the sky and see birds fly over the house. You look at the yard and see squirrels under the window in the grass. 

Prepositional phrases are groups of words that begin with a preposition and end in a noun, usually the next noun you read in the sentence after the preposition.

along the lane

at the door

through the door

into the hall

down the corridor

to the kitchen

up the stairs

across the hall

in the bathroom

out the window

at the yard

at the sky

over the house

at the yard

under the window

in the grass

Prepositional phrases are always modifiers, meaning their function in a sentence is to add detail to the sentence. When we are analyzing the structure of a sentence, I recommend bracketing off prepositional phrases first thing, even before finding verbs, that way you won’t be tricked into thinking a noun in a prepositional phrase is the subject of the sentence.

Now turn back to Exercise 1, in which you should already have found all your predicates and subjects, and practice bracketing off prepositional phrases. If you did not complete Exercise 1 in Lesson 3, go back and do it now. As you identify predicates and subjects, you can also bracket off prepositional phrases. To check your answers, click here. (Remember, handouts open in Google Drive.)

Continue to Lesson 5

Sentence Basics: Predicates and Subjects (Lesson 3)

Finding predicates and subjects

• Click here for the video lesson.
• Click here for a handout to accompany the video lesson. Note, handouts require the use of Google Drive.

In the last lesson, we talked about three kinds of words that work with verbs to form thoughts. Now let's see how sentences form from verbs.

When a verb works with a subject to express a thought, the verb is called the predicate. I often use the word verb and predicate interchangeably because all predicates are verbs. That said, not all verbs are predicates, so we’ve already encountered our first point of grammar confusion. I could make things even more confusing and get into the idea of the “complete predicate,” but let’s focus on the big picture. What matters is that a verb that takes a subject is a predicate.

Consider the following sentences, which are the opening lines of Moby Dick:

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

Here we have two sentences, one short, and one long. Every sentence must have a predicate and a subject and express a complete thought. The first sentence in this example, “Call me Ishmael,” expresses a thought: the narrator has asked the reader to address him by his first name, Ishmael. It has a verb—"call"—and we can infer that the reader is being told to do the action of calling. As such, this sentence subject (the person doing an action) and a predicate (a verb that takes a subject). This basic command is a very simple sentence. Toddlers speak in this kind of sentence all day.

"Give me!"
"Hold me!"
"Show me!" 

The second sentence from Moby Dick is a perfect example of how a writer can build up a sentence with several predicates and subjects. First, let’s find all the verbs, both action and state of being.

Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

This one sentence contains five verbs. Let’s see which are predicates by seeing which verbs have subjects. To do so, we ask a question, “who or what + verb?” If that question has a logical answer in the sentence, the verb is a predicate.

Mind - (mind here means pay attention (as in “Mind the gap” or “Mind the door”)). Who or what mind? This sentence is asking the reader to mind, or rather, since the word never appears, it’s telling us not to mind. Mind has a subject, so it is a predicate.

Having - Who or what having? That question sounds grammatically awkward. To be a logical, natural question, we would need to rephrase it to something along the lines of “Who or what is having?” We can infer from this that “having” is not a predicate.

To Interest — Who or what to interest? Again, that question isn’t grammatically correct. To connect the verb to a noun, we would need to change the wording to something like “Who or what interests?” Because of this, we know that “to interest” does not have subject and is not a predicate.

Thought — Who or what thought? I thought. The subject of “thought” is “I.” Thought is a predicate.

Would sail — Who or what would sail? I would sail. The subject of “would sail” is “I.” Would sail is a predicate.

See — Who or what would see? I would see. The subject of “see” is “I.” See is a predicate.*

*Notice, in this instance, the subject was a little ways back in the sentence. In fact two verbs, “sail” and “see” share the subject “I.” We’ll talk more about this sharing later, but for now, it’s enough to know such things are possible. Isn’t grammar fun?

The steps we just completed are the foundation of understanding sentences. It is essential to master the skill of locating predicates and subjects. There are many more things we could discuss about the two sentences in this example, and indeed, we’ll return to this example sentence again a few times before we’re done, but for now here’s the important takeaway: When trying to understand a sentence, the first step is to find all the verbs, and the second step is to ask “who or what + verb?” to see which ones are predicates.

The more you practice, the more easily you’ll be able to tell on sight which verbs are predicates because you’ll understand the patterns that work in sentences. That said, it’s always a good exercise to walk through the question and answer process when identifying predicates and subjects. Skipping that process can lead to confusion and mistakes.

Click here for Exercise 1, practice finding subjects and predicates. (Note, handouts require the use of Google Drive).

Continue to Lesson 4

Sentence Basics: Nouns, Modifiers, Connectors (Lesson 2)

In the last lesson, we reviewed verbs. Now let's look at the other three main types of words that are used with verbs to form thoughts.

For a video version of this lesson, click here.

Nouns (and pronouns)

Nouns are words that name people, places, things, and ideas. Pronouns are stock words that replace nouns to help us avoid repetition.

Nouns (and pronouns) perform the verb’s action or receive something from the verb’s action, and a whole bunch of other things in a sentence, too.

Modifiers

A modifier is word that adds detail to a verb or noun (or pronoun). It changes a noun or verb or makes it more specific.

Example: Dress is a noun. If I want to refer to a specific dress and I say, "This red dress is my favorite." Red is a modifier.

Example: Run is a verb. If I want to say how someone ran, I might say, "Joe runs quickly." Quickly is a modifier.

Connectors

Connectors join words together to make pairs or lists or to show relationships between people, places, things, ideas, or actions.

There are many connectors, but two common types are conjunctions and prepositions.

Conjunctions join words and ideas (and, but, or, so, yet, for, nor, because, either…or, neither…nor, whether…or). To learn more about conjunctions, watch this short video from Schoolhouse Rocks.

Prepositions are short words that show relationships. Common prepositions are to, in, of, for, out, and on.

We’ll talk more about prepositions a little bit later.

Move on to Lesson 3

Sentence Basics: Verbs (Lesson 1)

Click here to access the video lesson of Sentence Basics: Verbs

In grammar, there is a very specific term for every element of a sentence. If we wanted to be picky, we could learn them all, but who’s got time for that? Instead of getting lost in the grammar weeds, for our purposes, it is far more important to focus on the big picture and create a framework for sentences. To that end, we’ll begin with just four categories of words that work together to form thoughts. Alas, you’ll have to memorize these, but actually, you already use them all the time, whether or not you can name them, so it will be a simple process of labeling what you already know intuitively.

Action Verbs and State of Being Verbs

Action verbs are fairly self-explanatory—words that name things you can do such as run, play, think, sit, walk, and so on.

State of being verbs are a little hard to define. State of being verbs are sometimes called linking verbs. All forms of the verb “to be” or words that can be synonyms for the verb “to be” are state of being verbs. (You may find the acronym SOB useful here, but out of context, other people might think you mean a different sort of SOB, so consider yourself warned!)

The easiest way to learn the state of being verbs is to memorize them. I’m opposed to mindless memorization, so what I encourage is mindful memorization. What that means is that we will memorize them so that we can use them without constantly having to look them up. I know, I know, you’ve got a phone in your hand, you could look them up whenever you need to, but trust me, some information is best memorized for easy access. Your home address and your birthday are two shining examples. To that end, here’s a list of state of being verbs

The Verb “To Be” in all its forms:

am, are, is, was, were, will be, being

Words that are loose synonyms for “to be” are also considered state of being verbs. Consider the list below. What you’ll see here is that some words can easily be replaced in a sentence with a form of “to be” without doing much damage to a sentence’s meaning. If that’s the case, the verb is a “state of being verb.” The list below is not all-inclusive, but it will get you started.

Seem - example: She seems nice. / She is nice.
Feel - example: This sweater feels soft. / The sweater is soft.
Smell - example: These cookies smell great. / These cookies are great.
Taste - example: Dinner tastes divine. / Dinner is divine.
Look - example: That picture looks pretty. / That picture is pretty.
Grow - example: You’ve grown so tall. / You are so tall.
Become - example: She has become a fine person. / She is a fine person.
Remain - example: This remains my favorite book. / This is my favorite book.

Note, that some of the verbs above can also be actions. Consider this sentence: “Look at my new shoes.” In this case, “look” identifies the action of turning one’s eyes to view something. Similarly, in the sentence, “Taste my new recipe for cookies,” “taste” is the action of taking a bite and savoring the experience of a food. As these examples show, verbs are incredibly flexible. They can perform a wide variety of jobs in a sentence, so it’s important to always consider verbs in their context.

One of the trickiest aspects of verbs is that they change to tell when an action occurred. Verbs can describe an action in the past, in the present, or in the future, and they can change to tell us an action was ongoing or interrupted by another in the past, in the present, or in the future. What you want to remember about verbs is that sometimes an action can be expressed in a single word, and sometimes an action needs to be expressed in several words that all work together to describe the action. The most important thing is to find the main action verb, but try to notice if several words are working together to show the action. Look at the following examples:

I go to school every day.
I used to go to school every day.
I will start going to school every day in the fall.

In all three sentences the main action is “go.” The first sentence shows a simple verb. One word expressed the action. The second example uses three words to express a past action, and the third example uses three words to express a future action. When looking for verbs in a sentence, pay attention to the words before the action verb to see if they are working together.

Move on to Lesson 2