Subordinate Help Urgent Please???

[stebiz]

I'm trying to help my daughter with her junior homework and need some help please!!

Look at the sentences below, choose two coloured pencils and underline the main clause and SUBORDINATE clause.

Remember not all of the sentences have subordinate clauses some may have two main clauses.

1) Jake worked hard and did well in his maths
2) The shoes were too small and had to be replaced.
3) Tom, who had been off with flu, was too ill to play football
4) The squirrel leapt from the branch as the cat chased it.
5) Reuben's pen was broken, he needed to get a new one.
6) Tom fell off his bike but he was not badly hurt.
7) Joel fed his budgie and Josh fed the cat.
8) In class we learnt about the Romans, they were very powerful people.
9) The CD, which had been scratched, no longer worked.
10) I walked home Rebecca took the bus.

Now write five of your own.

Can anybody help me please??

Cheers

Steve

[MrPedantic]

Hello Stebiz, welcome to Using English!

If you look at #7, you can see that two different statements are connected by an "and". Neither action is connected to the other; and each statement will stand alone:

7a. Joel fed his budgie.
7b. Josh fed the cat.

When you can do this, neither clause is subordinate.

With #4, however, you can't do this:

4. The squirrel leapt from the branch, as the cat chased it.

"It" refers back to the squirrel in the first part. "As" shows that the time of the chasing was the same as the time of the leaping. So there's a connection between the two parts: the second part is subordinate to the first part.

With this in mind, do you want to see if your daughter can try the other sentences? Then we'll check them for her.

All the best,

MrP

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by stebiz

I'm trying to help my daughter with her junior homework and need some help please!!

Look at the sentences below, choose two coloured pencils and underline the main clause and SUBORDINATE clause.

Remember not all of the sentences have subordinate clauses some may have two main clauses.

1) Jake worked hard and did well in his maths
2) The shoes were too small and had to be replaced.
3) Tom, who had been off with flu, was too ill to play football
4) The squirrel leapt from the branch as the cat chased it.
5) Reuben's pen was broken [,] he needed to get a new one.
6) Tom fell off his bike but he was not badly hurt.
7) Joel fed his budgie and Josh fed the cat.
8) In class we learnt about the Romans [,] they were very powerful people.
9) The CD, which had been scratched, no longer worked.
10) I walked home [ ] Rebecca took the bus.

Now write five of your own.

Can anybody help me please??

Cheers

Steve

A main clause is one that can stand on its own; a subordinate clause relies on a main clause for its meaning.

Red = main
Blue = subordinate

Sentences 5, 8, and 10 are incorrectly punctuated. In each of them, there are two independent clauses that need different punctuation and/or a conjunction. A they stand, they are run-on sentences.

5 needs [broken, and he] or [broken; and he] or [broken; he] or [broken. He]
8 needs [Romans; they] or [Romans. They]
10 needs [home, and Rebecca] or [home, but Rebecca] or [home; Rebecca]
or [home. Rebecca]

I also have mild quibble with 9. Without other information or context, I would call the subordinate clause a restrictive relative clause. These clauses are not to be set off by commas. Only nonrestrictive relative clauses are set off by commas. Also, in AmE, we would more commonly use "that" for restrictive relative clauses than "which".

[rewboss]

Originally Posted by MikeNewYork

I also have mild quibble with 9. Without other information or context, I would call the subordinate clause a restrictive relative clause. These clauses are not to be set off by commas. Only nonrestrictive relative clauses are set off by commas. Also, in AmE, we would more commonly use "that" for restrictive relative clauses than "which".

I don't think it's necessarily a restrictive clause at all. It does depend on the context, but I can easily think of a context where it would quite naturally be non-restrictive:

When I unpacked it after the move, everything was broken. The handbook was torn; the cable connecters were all crushed and didn't fit into the sockets; and the CD, which had been scratched, no longer worked.

That said, stebiz, I assume you typed that out from a hard copy? Because there are some punctuation errors in it. If you made the errors, all well and good -- it happens. But if the errors are there in the original, whoever wrote it needs to learn what a "run-on sentence" is and why semicolons are a Good Thing.

[MikeNewYork]

Originally Posted by rewboss

I don't think it's necessarily a restrictive clause at all. It does depend on the context, but I can easily think of a context where it would quite naturally be non-restrictive:

When I unpacked it after the move, everything was broken. The handbook was torn; the cable connecters were all crushed and didn't fit into the sockets; and the CD, which had been scratched, no longer worked.

That said, stebiz, I assume you typed that out from a hard copy? Because there are some punctuation errors in it. If you made the errors, all well and good -- it happens. But if the errors are there in the original, whoever wrote it needs to learn what a "run-on sentence" is and why semicolons are a Good Thing.

That is why I said "without other information or context". IMO, when one produces decontextualized examples for an exercise, one should not expect the student to manufacture a context that makes it work. As it stands, it reads as a restrictive clause, but it could be nonrestrictive in a context such as the one you provided.