Clause is a part of sentence. Sentence is a group of words that contain a subject and predicate making complete sense by itself. A group of words that contains subject and predicate and is part of sentence is called as a Clause.
Kinds of clauses
Clauses are of three kinds-
1. Principal Clause
2. Subordinate Clause
3. Coordinate Clause
A sentence may consist of one or more than one clause.
Examples-
- The children are playing in a ground.
- The children are playing in the ground which has a layer of grass.
- Sentence (a) has only one subject, ‘children’ and one predicate ‘are playing in a ground’.
So this sentence contains only one clause.
- In sentence (b), there are two clauses-
- The children are playing in a ground.
[Subject-children, predicate- are playing in a ground (verb- are playing)]
- Which has a layer of grass
[Subject-which, predicate- has a layer of grass (verb- has)]
In this sentence, clause 1 makes complete sense so it is called as Principal Clause but clause 2 does not make complete sense. It depends on clause 1 to make complete sense so it is called as Dependent or Subordinate clause.
Sometimes sentence may contain two or more main clauses.
Example-
I play a drama and Alka plays one act play.
This sentence contains two clauses
1. I play a drama
[Subject- I, predicate- play a drama (verb- play)]
2. Alka plays one act play
[Subject- Alka, predicate- plays one act play (verb- plays)]
In this sentence, two clauses are joined by the conjunction ‘and’. Both clauses make complete sense independently. Such clauses which make complete sense
independently are called as Coordinate Clauses.
Note- The word ‘dependent’ means something depends on another
‘subordinate’ means of less importance
‘coordinate’ means equal in importance.
