CLASSES VI - X GRAMMAR - PHRASES & CLAUSES

 

PHRASES AND CLAUSES

PHRASES are group words that act like a part of speech, but they are not complete sentences as they don’t have a subject or a verb. E.g., My best friend (Noun Phrase, with the blue shirt (Prepositional phrase which behaves like an adjective), for twenty days (prepositional phrase acts like an adverb)

CLAUSE are a group of words that can be a sentence but not always. However, the difference between the phrase and clause is that clauses have a subject and a verb. A clause cant be a phrase because its just one part of speech, while a clause has always has a noun or pronoun component and a verb component (part).

A clause can be Independent i.e., can stand on its own as a complete sentence while it can be a dependent clause also i.e., it cannot stand on its own. E.g., Although she is hungry…(dependent clause)

(dependent clause) Although she is hungry, she will give some her food to the poor. (Independent clause)

E.g., The wizard who cast a spell. – Dependent clause as this sentence needs an Independent clause to complete it.

The wizard cast a spell – Independent clause as it complete the sentence with a noun and verb.

Relative clause is a dependent clause which begins with a relative pronoun i.e., who, where,  whose, which, that. e.g., The woman, who always wore a red hat, came to the café every Sunday.

If you take out the clause which appears between the two commas will not cause much of a problem in completing the sentences. It provides extra information about what is being spoken about. With the relative pronoun at the beginning it cannot stand on its own.