11 Independent
and Dependent Clauses
All clauses have a subject and a predicate. Some have completeness of thought
as well. They stand by themselves. I’m tempted to call these sovereign
clauses, but that label has political and historical connotations that might
detract from the incredibly important discussion of, you know, grammar and
stuff. We’ll call these independent clauses.
When the drunken pirate sitting next to my grandmother at Commencement
became obnoxious and put his eye-patch over my uncle’s mouth.
This is long and fairly interesting, but it’s not an independent clause. The word
when kills the completeness of thought. All sentences in the English language
have at least one independent clause.
They are.
As short and uninformative as it is, this is an independent clause. It has a
completeness of thought. I didn’t say it had to be a good thought.
Dependent clauses, then, like the one about my uncle’s unfortunate run-in
with the drunken pirate, have a subject and predicate. They do not, however,
have a completeness of thought. In that sense, they’re sort of like freshmen.
There are three types of dependent clauses: adverb clauses, adjective clauses,
and noun clauses.
Adverb clauses are perhaps the easiest to recognize. To create an adverb
clause, add a subordinate conjunction to any independent clause. Remember the
subordinate conjunctions? Here are many of them again:
after
although
as
as much as
because
before
if
in order that
since
so that
than
though
until
when
whenever
where
wherever
while
These conjunctions are killers. They kill the completeness of thought.
I tumbled down the stairs and landed on my cat Jubal.
That’s an independent clause; it has a completeness of thought. Now let’s make
it an adverb clause.
When I tumbled down the stairs and landed on my cat Jubal
The subordinate conjunction when weakened it. For it to exist at all, I need to
tack it on to an independent clause.
When I tumbled down the stairs and landed on my cat Jubal,
he decided to find a new owner.
Notice that when I begin with the adverb clause, I separate it from the
independent clause with a comma. I can also tack the adverb clause onto the end
of the sentence.
My cat Jubal decided to find a new owner
when I tumbled down the stairs and landed on him.
In these cases, the comma is optional. It’s a style call.
Although the Boys don’t understand independent clauses, they enjoy
Independence Day. Hastings slept through the parade, but we still gave him
a hot dog at the end.
About Hawaiian Sovereignty, they have no opinion. I’m pretty sure they’d
be for it, as long as there’s a hot dog at the end of the parade.