Languages & Linguistics
Dependent Clause
A dependent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb but does not express a complete thought. It relies on an independent clause to form a complete sentence. Dependent clauses often begin with subordinating conjunctions such as "because," "although," or "when." They add complexity and nuance to sentences by providing additional information or context.
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6 Key excerpts on "Dependent Clause"
eBook - ePubA Grammar of Paluai
The Language of Baluan Island, Papua New Guinea
- Dineke Schokkin(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
11 Clausal relations and clause combiningA clause is a linguistic unit that consists of a predicate plus its core and peripheral arguments. A predicate is most often headed by a verb or SVC, but its head can also be a noun, adjective, numeral, preposition or interrogative word. See Chapter 6 for a discussion of verbal predicates, Chapter 7 for a discussion of non-verbal predicates, and Chapter 8 for a discussion of grammatical relations and alignment of arguments within the clause.A main clause can stand alone, whereas a Dependent Clause usually does not make sense by itself and needs to be embedded within a main clause. This is the case with relative clauses and complement clauses, with the exception of quotational complement clauses after the verb pwa ‘say’. Alternatively, a Dependent Clause may be linked to a main clause by means of a subordinating conjunction. In addition, two main clauses can be linked to each other by means of a coordinating conjunction. In what follows, relations between main and Dependent Clauses will be discussed first, followed by relations between two main clauses.11.1 Dependent Clauses
A Dependent Clause modifies or specifies a main clause or a constituent in a main clause. The following types of Dependent Clauses can be distinguished:- Relative clause, modifying a noun;
- Complement clause, functioning as a core or peripheral argument to a verb, or as a modifier to an adjective functioning as a predicate head in a non-verbal predicate;
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Adverbial subordinate clause:
- Temporal (simultaneous and successive);
- Manner;
- (Possible) consequence;
- Concessive;
- Conditional.
Dependent Clauses are introduced by the marker te, with the exception of some types of modal complement clauses and conditional subordinate clauses. In very general terms, te marks the fact that a particular constituent slot is filled by a clause rather than by a phrase. It may have the same origin as the formative te-
- Nancy M. Sullivan(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
136 Adjective, Adverb, and Noun Clauses Before we start our discussion of clauses, it is essential that you understand the difference between a clause and a phrase. You were first introduced to the term “clause” on the first page of Chapter 1. We learned that a clause is a grammatical unit that contains both a subject and verb. All complete sentences consist of at least one and, often, multiple clauses. Clauses are divided into two types: independent and dependent. “Languages evolve” is a clause that can stand by itself as a grammatical sentence, so it is called an inDependent Clause (also referred to as a main clause). Below are examples of sentences that contain two inDependent Clauses, here conjoined with “or” and “and.” Combining two inDependent Clauses with coordinating conjunctions is very common. This is called a compound sentence. These clauses can be separated and function independently. Languages can evolve, or languages can die. A language evolves over time, and this ensures its survival. Not all clauses can function independently, for example, “When languages evolve.” Notice that the sentence is not grammatical (not a complete thought), even though it has a subject (languages) and a verb (evolve). This is called a Dependent Clause (also referred to as a subordinate clause). Here, to be consistent, the terms “inDependent Clause” and “Dependent Clause” will be used in our discussion of clauses. The adjective, adverb, and noun clauses that we examine in this chapter are all Dependent Clauses, meaning that they cannot function alone; they must be attached to other clauses to be grammatical. When a language evolves, it reflects the needs of its speakers. ↑ ↑ Dependent Clause inDependent Clause As you can see, the sentence above contains one Dependent Clause and one inDependent Clause (called a complex sentence), each with its own subject and verb.
eBook - PDFBurmese
A Comprehensive Grammar
- Mathias Jenny, San San Hnin Tun(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
Chapter 7 Clause and sentence structure Phrases are combined into clauses, and clauses into sentences. A sentence can consist of one or more clauses, at least one of which typically is an inDependent Clause. Dependent Clauses can occur alone in some contexts, though. Two types of clauses can be distinguished based on their form and function, namely independent (main) and dependent (subordinate) clauses. Though these two clause types are formally distinct, functionally there is some overlap, as formally Dependent Clauses often occur alone, function-ing de facto as inDependent Clauses, for various pragmatic reasons. In the following sections the formal properties and functions of different clause types are described. This includes also transitivity and processes changing transitivity, participation in events, and the combination of sentences into complex structures. Finally, the main functions of complete sentences are described. 7.1 The makeup of clauses A clause is typically made up of a predicate, which most commonly con-sists of a verb phrase, the arguments denoting the participants of the situa-tion (commonly expressed by noun phrases), and more peripheral elements, commonly called adverbials phrases. While verb phrases are the most com-mon type of predicates, other elements can be the main predicating part of a clause. Non-verbal predicates are predicates that have no verbal element at all (zero copula), or a semantically empty or weak verb (copula). 7.1.1 Clauses with verbal predicates Most commonly a clause has a verbal predicate, which occurs clause-finally. The verbal predicate consists of a verb phrase, including all verbal modifiers 7 Clause and sentence structure 242 as described in Chapter 6 . The general structure of clauses with verbal pred-icate is XP XP VP, where XP stands for a noun phrase or adverbial phrase, and VP for the verb phrase (predicate). The XPs denote arguments or pe-ripheral information about time, location, manner, etc.
eBook - ePub- Irina Nikolaeva(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
Chapter 13
Overview of Dependent Clauses
Three syntactico-semantic types of Dependent Clause, relative clauses, complement clauses and adverbial clauses, are addressed in more detail in Chapters 14 , 15 and 16, respectively. This chapter provides an overview of their common features. A general property of embedded clauses is that they lack free-standing complementizers but make extensive use of non-finite verbal forms. However, the language recently acquired finite embedded clauses with overt complementizers, evidently under influence from Russian. In many (but not all) types of Dependent Clause non-finite verbs take case or postpositional marking indicating the syntactic role of the clause with respect to the matrix predicate. Person/number markers selected from the nominal possessive paradigm may appear to signal the features of the embedded subject. Their distribution depends on a number of syntactic and semantic conditions.1 Finite Dependent Clauses
Finite Dependent Clauses will not be discussed in detail here because they represent a fairly recent innovation and are largely modelled after Russian. I will only cite a few illustrative examples.Unlike non-finite relative clauses described in Chapter 14 , finite relative clauses have the following properties: they are postnominal and include a wh-word which functions as a complementizer located on the left periphery of the clause, but otherwise the structure does not differ from the structure of a main/inDependent Clause. In particular, the subject stands in the nominative. Basically all grammatical functions can be relativized with this strategy including objects of postpositions, which are not always relativizable using the non-finite strategy. However, it seems that relativization of objects of comparison is still impossible, just like in Russian.Free relatives also seem to be modelled after Russian and require a wh-word in the Dependent Clause and a coreferential anaphoric element in the main clause. One distinctive Tundra Nenets feature is that in the presence of the wh-word in Dependent Clauses, the dependent verb must stand in the interrogative mood when it has past tense reference:
- David L. Shores(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
THE RELATIONSHIP AND JOINING OF CLAUSES 187 (1) Gif twa men oper iii coman ridend to an tun al f)e tunscipe flugaen for heom. 'If two or three men came riding to a village, all the villagers fled from them.' (265.3-4) (2) se kyng hit him iastte fordi he wxs his msei .... 'The king gave it to him because he was his kinsman .... ' (258.5) These two examples are different from the others in that they occur with Dependent Clauses which cannot be replaced by single words or phrases. They illustrate how Dependent Clauses manifest slots at the T-unit level. It may be generally said then that nominal clauses typically operate at the clause and phrase levels, adjectivals at the phrase level, and adverbial clauses at the clause, phrase, and T-unit levels. 6.2. FUNCTIONS OF Dependent ClauseS It was pointed out earlier that Dependent Clauses were structures different from in-Dependent Clauses only in that they begin with subordinating tagmemes, which signal inclusion and relate them to certain primary tagmemes of a clause or to the T-unit as a whole. That is, instead of serving as independent structural units, they are em-bedded in or attached to T-units. The Dependent Clauses were later classified as nominal, adjectival, and adverbial and were shown to operate on three levels. Now, focus will be centered on how and what kinds of slots these clauses manifested. All of these may appear in other Dependent Clauses as well as in inDependent Clauses. 6.2.1. The Nominal Clause The first type of Dependent Clause to be considered here is the nominal clause, of which there were sixty-four examples. Of the sixty-four examples, four filled the subject slot, forty-six the direct object slot, three the object-of-the-infinitive slot, and eleven the slots which were considered to be in apposition to primary nominal tagmemes.
eBook - PDF- Cheryl Glenn, Loretta Gray(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Cengage Learning EMEA(Publisher)
4. The United Nations dev otes most of its energies to protecting human rights, maintaining peace, and encouraging social development. 5. To reach its goals, the U nited Nations depends on funding from its member states. 6. Its blue flag easily recogniz ed everywhere, the United Nations now includes 192 countries. 7. Symbolizing peace, the emblem on the flag is a map enclosed by oliv e branches. ht 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02 se 1f 29 s pred The students earned high grades. An inDependent Clause can stand alone as a complete sentence. Other clauses can be added to an inDependent Clause to form a longer, more detailed sentence. (2) Dependent Clauses A Dependent Clause also has a subject and a predicate (1b). However, it cannot stand alone as a complete sentence because of the word introducing it—usually a relative pronoun or a subordinating conjunction. s pred The athlete who placed first grew up in Argentina. [relative pronoun] s pred She received the gold medal because she performed flawlessly. e e [subordinating conjunction] If it is not connected to an inDependent Clause, a Dependent Clause is considered a sentence fragment (2c). (a) Noun clauses Dependent Clauses that serve as subjects ( 1b) or objects (1c) are called noun clauses (or nominal clauses). They are introduced by if, that, or a wh- word such as what or why. Notice the similarity in usage between noun phrases and noun clauses. ht 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02 30 G Sentence Essentials Noun phrases Noun clauses The testimony may not y y What the witness said be true. [subject] may not be true. [subject] We do not understand their We do not understand why motives. [direct object] they did it. [direct object] When no misunderstanding would result, the word that can be omitted from the beginning of a noun clause.
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