English Syntax

Week 3: Clause VS Sentence

Tristy Kartika Fi’aunillah, M.A.

 The Hierarchy of Linguistic Units

Phoneme Morpheme Word Phrase Clause Sentence

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a grammatically self-contained speech unit consisting of a word,
or a syntactically related group of words

expresses an assertion, a question, a command, a wish, or

an exclamation

usually begins with a capital letter and ends with a

period (full stop), question mark, or exclamation mark.

consists of at least a subject and a predicate

consists of at least one clause

consists of at least 1 noun phrase & 1 verb phrase → S=NP+VP

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 My son drives my car very slowly because he just got his driver license last week.

Phrases
NP VP NP AdvP NP VP NP AdvP

My son drives my car very slowly because he just got his driver license last week.

clause 1 clause 2

Sentence
➢ A clause also expresses a whole event or situation with a subject and a predicate

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 Simple
Sentence

Compound-
Compound
Complex Sentence Sentence
Sentence

Complex
Sentence

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Simple Sentence
• Consists of only one main/independent clause
e.g.:
S P
✓ The baby / is crying.

S P A A
✓ The waitresses / are basking / in the sun / like a herd of skinned seals, /

A
their pinky-brown bodies shining with oil.

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Compound Sentence
• Consists of two or more main/independent clauses joined by:
a) a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so → FANBOYS)
b) a semicolon and a conjunctive adverb (however, therefore, furthermore, etc.)
c) only a semicolon

e.g.:
✓ Ahmad likes volleyball and Umar likes basketball.
✓ Ahmad likes volleyball but Umar likes basketball.
✓ Ahmad likes volleyball; however, Umar likes basketball.
✓ Ahmad likes volleyball; Umar likes basketball.

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Complex Sentence
• Consists of one independent clause and at least one full dependent clause with its own subject
and predicate
• A dependent clause starts with a subordinator/a subordinating conjunction (because, after
before, if, as, etc)
e.g.:

✓ My son drives my car carefully because he just got his driver license last week.
✓ Although Ahmad likes volleyball, Umar likes basketball.
✓ Ahmad, who likes volleyball, rarely plays basketball.

nonessential dependent clause → relative/adjective clause

✓ People who like volleyball rarely play basketball.

essential dependent clause

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Compound – Complex Sentence
• Compound-complex sentence: a compound sentence with complex parts, or a complex
sentence with compound parts.
• consists of two independent clauses joined to one or more dependent clauses.
e.g.:
✓ Ahmad likes volleyball, but Umar likes basketball because he is a fan of Stephen Curry.

Independent clause Independent clause dependent clause

✓ Umar, who is a fan of Stephen Curry, rarely plays volleyball; however, Ahmad enjoys volleyball.

dependent clause independent clause

Independent clause

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 Assignment

• Make a group of 3 students

• Find a journal article from Nobel and identify the simple, compound,
complex, and compound-complex sentences from the article (max 10
@type)
(http://jurnalfahum.uinsby.ac.id/index.php/nobel/)
• Make sure your group has different article than the others

Good luck!

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