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What is a Clause?

A clause is a group of related words which consists of a subject as well as a verb.

A clause is a combination of words that include a subject and a verb. Since it consists of a subject as well as a verb, it can stand alone as a small sentence that gives a complete meaning. Therefore, a clause can also be called a simple sentence.

A sentence has normally two parts: 1) subject (noun or pronoun that performs an action), and 2) predicate (the part of a sentence other than the subject). Based on this, the clause is also sometimes defined as a group of words containing a subject and a predicate.

It can be said that every sentence consists of at least one clause. See the following examples of simple clauses.

  • He laughed.
  • I am sleeping.
  • He is running.
  • She sings.
  • The dark is barking.

As noted earlier, a sentence can have more than one clause. This is what makes the term ‘clause’ an important concept in grammar. The purpose of learning the term ‘clause’ is to distinguish parts of a sentence which can stand alone as a simple sentence to give complete meaning. This helps in identifying groups of related words within a sentence as different clauses and understanding the structure of a compound sentence (have more than one clause).

A sentence having more than one clause is called a compound or complex sentence. In such a sentence, the clauses are joined by a conjunction such as but, and, because, which, although, etc.

Examples.

  • She is crying.   (one clause)
  • I waited for him, but he didn’t come.  (two clauses).
  • He called a doctor because he was not feeling well. (two clauses).
  • He bought a red shirt, but I bought a white shirt because it was cheaper. (three clauses).
  • I like physics because I want to become an engineer, but my friend likes biology because he wants to become a doctor. (four clauses).

Remember, the clause is a combination of words having both the subject and the object which can stand alone as a simple sentence to give a complete meaning. Therefore, a part of a sentence (other than the preposition, article and object) can be called a clause if it can stand alone as a simple sentence. See the following example with underlined part as a clause within each sentence.

  • They are laughing at a joker.
  • I saw a cat in the street.
  • She cooks food in the kitchen.

The underlined parts in the above examples represent a clause part within each sentence. Such reduction of a sentence to a clause is generally done for the new learners so they can easily learn the term ‘clause’.

However, it is important to understand that the definition of the clause has two parts: 1) it is a group of related words, and 2) this group of the related words must have a subject as well as an object. It means that all the related words (including a subject, a verb, a preposition, an article, an object) should be viewed as a clause. The presence of subject and verb in a clause is necessitated so that the other words related to them (subject and verb) can be identified and thus, all the related words (including a subject, a verb, a preposition, an article, an object) can be called a clause.

The above understanding of the term ‘clause’ is important because the purpose of learning the term ‘clause’ is to identify groups of related words (within a compound sentence) as different clauses. A compound sentence has two or more clauses and each of these clauses is made up of related words (including subject, verb, preposition, articles, object, etc.). All such related words (linked to the subject and verb) should be viewed as one clause. In other words, the preposition, articles or object may not be excluded from the clause if they are linked to the subject and the verb, even if the clause can be reduced to only to a subject and verb as a complete sentence.

See the following example.

  • I waited for him in the library, but he did not come.

The above sentence has two clauses connected by the conjunction ‘but’. In the first clause, the part ‘I waited for him’ can stand alone as a simple sentence and can be called a basic clause. However, the remaining words ‘in the library’ are also related to the first part ‘I waited for him’. Therefore, all the related words (I waited for him in the library) constitute a complete clause. This is how a clause is defined – a group of related words containing subject and verb. Likewise, this is what the concept of a clause is meant for – to identify different groups of related words as clauses within a sentence.

So, we would not say that ‘I waited for him’ is the first clause and ‘he did not come’ is the second clause. We would say that ‘I waited for him in the library’ is the first clause, and ‘he did not come’ is the second clause. This is important because in some cases one clause is dependent on another clause to give complete meaning where every clause should be considered in its entirety.

Note. Clauses have two major types: 1) Main (or independent) Clause, and 2) Subordinate (or dependent) Clause. Click here to read them.