Dependent and independent clauses | Syntax | Khan Academy Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

hello grammarians hello Rosie hello
David we're going to talk about
dependent and independent clauses full
disclosure this is a relatively advanced
part of grammar but it is important to
understand because mastering dependent
and independent clauses and being able
to say why a clause is dependent or
independent will help you become a
better writer will help you become a
stronger writer and make you give your
sentences vim and vigor and strength so
with all that out of the way let's start
with independent clauses because an
independent clause is basically a
sentence we established previously that
all a clause is is just a collection of
phrases with a subject and a verb so for
example the sentence I ate the pineapple
period is an independent clause so it's
a it's a couple of phrases we've got
this noun phrase I we've got this verb
phrase ate the pineapple and together
that becomes a subject and a verb or a
predicate so Rosie what is a dependent
clause so dependent clause I'm is
different from an independent clause in
that it can't stand on its own okay as a
sentence so it includes a subject and a
verb but it can't be its own sentence
and sometimes you know it might look
like a sentence it could start with
something like a subordinating
conjunction like the word because for
example because it was delicious
okay and let's be clear here
you know obviously this is a this is an
utterance that people say you know if
you ask me why did you eat the pizza I
would respond by saying because it was
delicious and why do we climb the
mountain because it is there you know
I'm not I'm not saying that this is not
not an utterance that is made by native
speaking English speakers it is of
course it is but you have to be aware
that it is a dependent clause and
therefore a sentence fragment and part
of natural informal speech is that we do
use a lot of sentence fragments and
sentence fragments are not as common
in formal writing you may sometimes use
them for effect but I want you to
remember that this these videos are
about standard American English and a
kind of formal version of standard
American English and so we're trying to
teach you to distinguish between
independent and dependent clauses so
that you can use them skillfully in the
full knowledge and mastery of your
choices you got to learn your scales
before you can improvise dig dig so
because it was delicious not a sentence
this is a dependent clause because it
begins with this subordinating
conjunction because you could also work
in something like although while and any
of these would make it a dependent
clause now if it was just on its own it
was delicious yeah of course that's a
sentence the the part that makes it
dependent is this subordinating
conjunction you put that onto the front
of it and all of a sudden it needs an
independent clause to lean up against I
know this is confusing so let's let's
take a look at a couple more examples of
independent and dependent clauses so the
following are independent clauses Rosie
the bear roared Maureen
pointed out the monster that's not our
pet rabbit and let's do some dependent
clauses and then you can see that we'll
be able to combine them in two sentences
while the salmon flopped that she saw
last night unless I'm mistaken so you
can see that these are all clauses right
we've established that you know each one
has a subject and a verb the bear roared
the salmon flopped but all of these have
some kind of everything in Orange has
something that's either a subordinating
conjunction like while or unless or a
relative pronoun like that
so while the salmon flopped you can see
in this context the bay
roared while the salmon flopped you can
kind of understand why this is called
the dependent clause because by the
context of this sentence while the
salmon flopped something else was going
on right this is kind of like background
information and it's in fact not
necessary for comprehending the first
sentence in the first Clause the
independent clause that bear roared and
if we did combine these you would
realize that the salmon flopped is just
background information right right but
we need to know what else is going on
for there to be a while so the bear
roared is a perfectly sensible sentence
on its own right and while the salmon
flopped is providing us with this extra
information the bearer is roaring while
this salmon flopped but if we were just
to see the sentence while the salmon
flopped on its own like say we didn't
have the bear roared it wouldn't make
any sense
right because the the presence of this
word while indicates that something else
is also going on that's what makes it
dependent so we need to have the bear
roared likewise Maureen pointed out the
monster that sentence works fine on its
own that she saw last night sure there's
a you know sure there's a subject and
there's a verb
she and saw right she saw something she
saw that but this relative pronoun needs
to refer back to something and that
makes it dependent on the monster so
this last one's a little tricky
right because you might be looking at
this and saying well unless I'm mistaken
where's the verb well the verb is kind
of hiding in here so unless I am
mistaken right so the presence of this
subordinating conjunction unless makes
this into a dependent clause
so unless means it's kind of hinging on
some other information so the other
information is that's not our pet rabbit
unless I'm mistaken I feel that there
should be a comma here so I'm going to
put one in
that's not our pet rabbit unless I'm
mistaken I hope that this has cleared
some stuff up
so an independent clause is a subject
and a verb and it can be a sentence a
dependent clause is a subject and a verb
but also a subordinating conjunction and
it cannot be a sentence you can learn
anything Dave it out Rosi out