Definition:
A group of words that has both a subject and a verb but (unlike an independent clause) cannot stand alone as a sentence. Also known as a dependent clause.
See also:
- Adjective Clause
- Adverb Clause
- Comparative Clause
- Complement Clause
- Complex Sentence
- Compound-Complex Sentence
- Conditional Clause
- Exercise in Identifying Adjective Clauses
- Exercise in Identifying Adverb Clauses
- Noun Clause
- Relative Clause
- Subordinating Conjunction
- Subordination
Examples and Observations:
- "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
(Mark Twain) - "When I'm good, I'm very, very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better."
(Mae West, I'm No Angel) - "Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events."
(Albert Einstein) - "If you can't leave in a taxi you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff.
(Groucho Marx, Duck Soup) - "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."
(John F. Kennedy) - "Man, when you lose your laugh, you lose your footing."
(Ken Kesey) - "Every book is a children's book if the kid can read."
(Mitch Hedberg) - Finite clauses are introduced by a subordinator, which serves to indicate the dependent status of the clause together with its circumstantial meaning. Formally, subordinating conjunctions can be grouped as follows:
- simple conjunctions: when, whenever, where, wherever, because, if, unless, until, while, as, although
- conjunctive groups: as if, as though, even if, even though, even when, soon after, no sooner
- complex conjunctions:: there are three subclasses:
(i) derived from verbs . . .: provided (that), granted (that), considering (that), seeing (that), suppose (that), supposing (that), so (that)
(ii) containing a noun: in case, in the event that, to the extent that, in spite of the fact that, the day, the way
(iii) adverbial: so/as long as, as soon as, so/as far as, much as, now (that)
- Subordinate Clauses in Poetry
"When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars."
(Walt Whitman, "When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer." Leaves of Grass)