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In traditional grammar, an independent clause (or main clause) is a clause that can stand by itself as a simple sentence. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate and makes sense by itself. Independent clauses can be joined by using a semicolon or by using a comma followed by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, for, or, nor ...
A complex sentence has at least one independent clause plus at least one dependent clause. [1] A set of words with no independent clause may be an incomplete sentence, also called a sentence fragment. A sentence consisting of at least one dependent clause and at least two independent clauses may be called a complex-compound sentence or compound ...
A typical sentence contains one independent clause and possibly one or more dependent clauses, although it is also possible to link together sentences of this form into longer sentences, using coordinating conjunctions (see above).
The earliest use of the word clause in Middle English is non-technical and similar to the current everyday meaning of phrase: "A sentence or clause, a brief statement, a short passage, a short text or quotation; in a ~, briefly, in short; (b) a written message or letter; a story; a long passage in an author's source."
A primary division for the discussion of clauses is the distinction between independent clauses and dependent clauses. [3] An independent clause can stand alone, i.e. it can constitute a complete sentence by itself. A dependent clause, by contrast, relies on an independent clause's presence to be efficiently utilizable.
Another definition of "sentence length" is the number of clauses in the sentence, whereas the "clause length" is the number of phones in the clause. [ 12 ] Research by Erik Schils and Pieter de Haan by sampling five texts showed that two adjacent sentences are more likely to have similar lengths than two non-adjacent sentences, and almost ...