Hi teachers,
I'd like to ask, how to differentiate the dependent from the independent clause of a sentence.
Thank you.
NOT A TEACHER
(1) Just as a child is
dependent on his/her parents, so is
a dependent (subordinate) clause "dependent" on an independent
clause.
(2) The dependent clauses are in bold:
I want to eat
because I am hungry.
I know
that you did it.
The woman
whom I marry must know how to cook.
(a) As you can see, those subordinate clauses depend on the
independent clauses to make sense. If you walked up to someone
on the street and said, "Because I am hungry," that stranger would
think that you were "crazy." But if you said, "I want to eat because I
am hungry," the stranger would understand you completely.
(b) You also notice that dependent clauses are often introduced by
conjunctions such as
because and
that. Whom is called a relative
pronoun.
(3) You can also drop a dependent clause, and the sentence is still
"good" English. For example, if I drop the three subordinate clauses
above, I get:
I am hungry.
I know.
The woman must know how to cook.
Grammatically speaking, those three sentences (without a subordinate
clause) are "good" English.