Clauses
Clauses are considered to be very important units in the study of language. But what is a clause? What makes it different from a word, a phrase, or a sentence? Why are clauses so important?
A clause is a powerful structure because it can express a whole situation. Here’s an example:
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Clause types: statements, questions, commands and exclamations
The National Curriculum recognises four clause types (also called ‘sentence types’ ). They are usually used to ‘do different things’. These are statements, questions, commands and exclamations.
Each clause type has its own typical pattern (i.e. word order).
In statements, the Subject comes in its typical position before the verb. Here are some examples:
Clause types: advanced
In the National Curriculum no terminological distinction is made between the grammatical patterns of the clause types, and the way that these clause types are used. In linguistic studies different terminology is used for the former and latter. What follows is not statutory in the NC, but some readers may appreciate some more background on terminology.
In linguistics the terms declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative are used to talk about grammatical patterns.
Clauses: Main and subordinate clauses
Typically, a clause expresses a particular situation – an event or state of affairs. To do this, it usually needs to contain a verb. Here is an example of a clause:
- My brother phoned my cousin on Tuesday night.
This expresses an event, with the verb phoned indicating the type of event.
Here are some more examples of clauses, with the verb phrases highlighted:
Clauses: Finite and nonfinite clauses
Look at each of these examples. Do they have present tense or past tense? Can we change the tense?
- She feels sick.
- I was watching TV.
In the first example, we have the present tense verb form feels. We could change to past tense: She felt sick.
In the second example, the verb phrase was watching contains the past tense form was. We could change to the present tense: I am watching TV.
Clauses: Relative clauses
Look at the highlighted clauses in these examples. What do they add to the meaning of the sentences?
Clauses: Further guidance for teachers
Modern grammatical descriptions of English differ in some ways from the accounts in traditional grammars. This can sometimes lead to confusion. Here we note a few important differences in relation to the analysis of clauses and sentences.
Identify the semantic role
Exercise
You will be given some sentences where two or three noun phrases are marked off with square brackets. For each sentence:
- Identify the semantic roles of the noun phrases (agent, patient or recipient).
- Write a different sentence to describe the same situation, where the same roles are expressed in different ways.
Example:
- [The people we were staying with] cooked [us] [a traditional Normandy dinner]. [S1A-009 #125, adapted]
Roles:
Passives and genre
Some grammatical features are used much more often in some types of text, or genre, than in others. For instance, imperative clauses (like Chop the carrots finely; Beat the mixture until smooth) are common in instructional genres such as recipes – for obvious reasons.
Word formation processes
New words are being generated at a rapid speed and there has been a huge upsurge in the number of new words being considered for inclusion in dictionaries. A fairly limited number of word formation processes are responsible for these new words. In our suggested mini-project, students look at a range of examples, and try to work out the key patterns of word formation that are responsible. This makes a good starting point for a detailed investigation of new words.
Project aims
Y2 GPaS Test: Present or past tense?
In each of the following examples, indicate whether the highlighted verb is in present or past tense:
Register: finding the right word
This activity is based on the idea of register and how language choices are often linked closely to context.
At its simplest level, this could mean that if you are talking to small children you might adopt a more straightforward register, choosing sentence structures that don't involve too much complicated information delivered in one go.
Rastamouse vibrations
A children’s show on television has caused delight to most and upset to some. Rastamouse is a tam-wearing, skateboard-riding mouse who likes to solve crimes and – in his words – make a bad ting good. He also speaks in Jamaican patois.
Texting styles
Recent research into texting suggests that different people use different styles. The style you use is influenced by factors such as your age, the social group you spend most of your time with, and whether you’re male or female – but also by your personal relationship with the person you’re texting and what you’re texting about.