Question

What is a “clause” in English?

Answer 1

Hint: In general we are often confused with another similar term called phrases. They are not the same things. But we can say that all clauses are phrases but all phrases are not clauses. Hence, they are not synonyms.

Complete answer:
Forming sentences in the English language requires knowledge of several parts. These parts include letters, which are put together to form words. Words are then put together to form phrases and clauses.
These phrases and clauses are then put together to form meaningful sentences.

When we have a group of words which do not contain a subject and a verb and are meaningless when used independently, then this group of words is called “phrase”.

When we have a group of words which contain a subject and a verb and can stand independently as a meaningful sentence, then these groups of words are known as “clauses”.
For e.g. He is eating with a fork. In this sentence, we have a clause and a phrase. “He is eating” has a subject (he) and a verb (eating), hence it is a clause. “With a fork” neither has a subject nor a verb. Therefore, it is a phrase.

Clauses can further be of two types depending on the kind of sentence;
i) Independent clauses, also called principal clauses are those which can act as independent sentences but cannot be used as nouns or adjectives. For e.g. We like chocolate cakes.
ii) Dependent clauses, also called subordinate clauses are those which cannot act as independent sentences but can be used as adverbs or adjectives depending on the principal clause. For e.g. I borrowed the book which was red in color.
Here the “I borrowed the book” is the primary clause, while “the book which was red in color” is the subordinate clause.

Note: To identify a primary clause, we need to look for a pattern that is, subject + verb = complete sentence or thought. To identify a subordinate clause, we need to look for a different pattern, that is, subordinate conjunction + subject + verb = incomplete sentence or thought.