Category Clause

In the three exercises below, identify which sentence contains a restrictive clause and which contains a non-restrictive. Also, if necessary, punctuate the sentence with comma(s). Remember, a non-restrictive clause takes a pair of commas if it falls in the middle of a sentence and a comma if at the end of a sentence.

Also called subordinate clause, a dependent clause is a prefabricated Lego-like unit containing both subject and verb. It conveys complex information concisely while functioning as one of the three parts of speech – noun, adjective, and adverb. The idea it carries though is not complete, and hence it can’t stand on its own as a sentence. It starts with certain marker words, which can be used to identify the clause.

A clause is a group of words that has a subject doing something. Put simply, it’s a grammatical unit that contains a subject and a verb. If the group of words doesn’t have both, it becomes a phrase. It can be a complete idea (independent clause) or an incomplete idea (dependent clause).

This post contains several examples of independent clause, which have been divided into two parts: the first contains regular, statement-kind independent clauses; the second contains somewhat non-regular independent clauses. Whatever form an independent clause takes, its fundamental remains the same: presence of both subject and (finite) verb and a complete idea. To get the most out of these examples, see if they meet this fundamental.

A finite clause is a grammatical unit containing subject and finite verb. It can be an independent clause, which can stand on its own as a sentence, or a dependent clause, which can’t be a sentence. A non-finite clause, on the other hand, is a grammatical unit that contains a non-finite verb. Since non-finite verb is participle and infinitive form of verb, in other words, a non-finite clause contains a participle or an infinitive as its verb.

A what-clause is a noun clause starting with the marker word what. Because it’s a noun clause, it can be subject, direct object of verb, object of preposition, subject complement, etc. in a sentence.