Search results for “clauses”

A common debate in English grammar can concern whether commas need to be used before conjunctions such as and, or, and but. These debates may stem from the fact that different people have been taught different guidelines about this punctuation. Style guides often differ about it as well. Today's post will help to clear things …

A subordinating conjunction is a word or a phrase that begins and therefore introduces a dependent (subordinate) clause. The subordinate conjunction marks how the dependent clause will modify the independent clause with information such as manner, place, time, contrast, cause, or a condition. Some common subordinating conjunctions include: after except that that although if though …

An adverb is a part of speech that modifies other sentence elements such as verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. It may also describe infinitives, gerunds, participles, phrases, clauses, or even the rest of the sentence in which it appears. Adverbs address information such as when (she is leaving now), where (she stops here), how (she …

A subject pronoun—also referred to as a subjective pronoun—replaces a noun that is in the subject position of a dependent or independent clause. This means that it performs rather than receives the action of the clause. Subject pronouns serve language by helping us avoid redundancy and be more frugal with language. Consider the following text: …

In a recent post we explained how a restrictive (essential) clause includes information that will change the meaning of a sentence if removed. Today we will look at its grammatical companion, the nonrestrictive (nonessential) clause. As its name suggests, a nonrestrictive clause is one that can be taken away from a sentence without changing understanding …

Understanding restrictive clauses is a valuable skill in applying English grammar. With this information, you'll gain further insight into how sentences are constructed for clarity. The Anatomy of a Restrictive Clause A restrictive clause is a dependent clause that modifies a word (noun). The information it gives is necessary for description or identification. In other …

The which vs. that usage dilemma pops up when working with dependent clauses—also known as subordinate clauses—that require one of these two relative pronouns. A dependent clause contains a subject and a predicate but cannot stand alone as a complete, independent sentence. Which and that are used with essential (also called restrictive) clauses, which contain …

The two main components of English sentences are subjects and predicates. Together, they form clauses. The complete subject is the main part of the sentence that contains at least one noun (or noun equivalent) and all of its modifiers. The complete predicate contains at least one verb and its auxiliaries, modifiers, and completing words if …

The paragraph is the primary unit of English composition. It represents the whole of its parts, which include sentences with phrases and clauses formed by letters and words. When composing a paragraph, we might ask ourselves how long it should be. The web and social media have greatly altered our approaches to answers. In his …

We conclude each twelve-month grammatical trip with a review of what we’ve studied and learned together. The 2020 master quiz features twenty-five items inspired by the year’s many different GrammarBook articles.