How to Identify Independent and Dependent Clauses

What is a Clause?  A clause is a group of words containing both a subject (who or what the sentence is about) and a verb (which describes the main action of the subject).

There are two types of clauses: independent clauses and dependent clauses. An independent clause can form a sentence on it's own, while a dependent clause cannot. 

What is an Independent

Clause?  

An independent c lause contains a subject and a predicate (which tel ls us

something about the subject) . These c lauses

can funct ion as their own complete sentences,

but they can also be combined with other

c lauses (e itherindependent or

dependent) to create longer sentences.  

Lets look at an example

"The cof fee was brewing because i t was ear ly morning."

We can break this sentence down into two parts.

The first part, The coffee was brewing, is an

independent clause because it contains both a subject and a verb: the subject is the coffee

and the verb phrase is was brewing. This clause can stand on its own as a

complete sentence.

The second part, because it was early morning, is a dependent clause. It lacks a subject. The dependent clause cannot be a sentence on

it's own. 

We already seen in the previous example that an independent clause and a dependent clause can be joined, but how do you join two independent clauses?

"The coffee was brewing. Itwas early morning."

Separate independent clausesOn the right, we have two independent clauses.

"The coffee was brewing; it was early morning."

If we want to join them, we can use a semicolon.What initially began

as a sentencemade up of an

independent anda dependent clause has become a sentence

with two independent clauses.

Independent clauses with semi-colon 

How to Join Independent Clauses

What is a  Dependent

Clause?  Just to recap, dependent clauses

cannot stand alone in a sentence.

There are a few different types of dependent clauses: adjectiveclauses, adverbial clauses, and

noun clauses.

A dependent clause begins with a subordinating conjunction,

such as if, after, before, because, although, or when, and requires the support of an independent

clause to create a complete sentence.

An adjective clause is a dependent clause that describes a noun in

another part of a sentence. Adjective clauses begin with the

relative pronouns who, whom, whose, that, or which. They can also begin

with the relative adverbs when, where, or why. Adverbial clauses are

dependent clauses that tell us why, when, how, or under which conditions something

occurs.

Noun clauses can act as either the subject or the object of a clause, and they usually begin with words like what, why, who,

and that.

Adjective Clause 

Noun Clause 

Adverbial Clause 

Now you know the difference between independent and

dependent clauses!

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