Dependent Clauses and Sentence Structure
A sentence with an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses is referred to as a complex sentence. One with two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses is referred to as a compound-complex sentence. Here are some English examples:
My sister cried because she scraped her knee. (complex sentence)
- Subjects: My sister, she
- Predicates: cried, scraped her knee
- Subordinating conjunction: because
When they told me (that) I won the contest, I cried, but I didn't faint. **(compound-complex sentence)
- Subjects: they, I, I, I
- Predicates: told me, won the contest, cried, didn't faint
- Subordinating conjunctions: when, that (explicit or understood)
- Coordinating conjunction: but
The above sentence contains two dependent clauses. "When they told me" is one; the other is "(that) I won the contest", which serves as the object of the verb "told." The connecting word "that," if not explicitly included, is understood to implicitly precede "I won" and in either case functions as a subordinating conjunction. This sentence also includes two independent clauses, "I cried" and "I didn't faint," connected by the coordinating conjunction "but." The first dependent clause, together with its object (the second dependent clause), adverbially modifies the verbs of both main clauses.
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Famous quotes containing the words dependent, sentence and/or structure:
“The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“The pipe, with solemn interposing puff,
Makes half a sentence at a time enough;
The dozing sages drop the drowsy strain,
Then pause, and puff—and speak, and pause again.”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)
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Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)