Page 30 - English Grammar - 8

1 155 Clauses
Clauses

Practise What You Know!actise What You Know!
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Complete the following sentences using clauses.

1. We heard ______________________________________________________________
2. She wished ______________________________________________________________
3. This is the book ______________________________________________________________
4. I shall help you ______________________________________________________________

Let’s Learn Clauses

A clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a finite verb. For example:
Vikram stopped. She sang. He slept.
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Let’s Learn Kinds of Clauses

There are two kinds of clauses.
Independent or Principal or Main Clause
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Dependent or Subordinate Clause
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An independent clause is a sentence by itself or part of a bigger sentence. A simple sentence
contains only one clause.

Subject + Verb = Complete Thought

For example:
Mother called the family.
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The ducklings swam to the other side of the lake.
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I have been planning to buy a new house.
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In the above sentences, the verbs are both single word (called or swam) and a group of
words (have been planning). They are clauses with only one verb.
A dependent clause cannot stand by itself. It needs to be combined with an independent
clause to make a complete sentence.

Subordinate Conjunction + Subject + Verb = Incomplete Thought

We need to have a main clause to make the complete sense. For example:
When the ducklings swam, they reached their home safely.
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