Clauses and Phrases

And parallelism too.

First, let’s review

• Nouns– Whatever exists can be named. That name is a noun– Bob, girl, school, Room 103

• Verbs– Describes the behavior or action of someone or something

• Run, walk, listen– State of Being Verbs and Linking Verbs

• Connects a noun or a pronoun with words that describe or identify a word or pronoun

• Jane is tired

• Adjectives– Modify nouns– Hungry, yellow, awesome (like Mrs. France!)

• Adverbs– modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs– Breathing angrily

• Pronouns– Words that replace nouns.– Identify persons, places, things, and ideas without

renaming them– Christine texts me all the time. Good thing I have an

unlimited plan, or she would be costing me tons of money.• Prepositions– A word or word phrase that shows a relationship between

a noun or pronoun and other words in a sentence. – With, to, from, through

• Conjunctions– Words that connect individual words or groups of

words (in other words, they conjoin).– FANBOYS, however, therefore

• Interjections– exclamatory word or phrase that can stand by

itself.– WOOHOO!

Phrases

A group of words without a subject and verb that functions as one part of speech

• Gerund phrase– Gerund with modifiers or a complement

(words that complete its meaning), all acting together as a noun.• Gerund = Noun formed from the present

participle of a verb (aka ends in –ing). – This getting up so early thing sucks.

• Prepositional phrase– Includes preposition and noun– I was awake before dawn

• Adjective phrase– Prepositional phrase that

modifies noun or pronoun– The likeness of the dog would

get mixed up with that of the cat

• Adverb phrase– Prepositional phrase that modifies

a verb, adjective, or adverb– From every side men ran to the

succor of the dame.• Appositive phrase– Noun or pronoun with modifiers,

placed next to a noun or pronoun to add information and details

– Mousse, Mrs. France’s dog, is the coolest dog ever.

• Participial phrase– Participle that is modified by an adjective or adverb phrase

or that has a complement (a group of words that completes the participle’s meaning) • The entire phrase acts as an adjective

– Her stepmother seem drained of strength• Infinitive phrase– Infinitive with modifiers, complements, or a subject, all

acting together as a single part of speech.– And he felt it his duty to explain to his traveling

companions that the poor woman was to be pitied

ClausesGroup of words with its own subject and verb• Independent clause– Can stand on its own as a complete sentence

• Dependent/subordinate clause– Cannot stand by itself

I’m tired because Connor woke up in the middle of the night

• Adjective clause– Subordinate clause that modifies a noun or

pronoun by telling what kind or which one– The more stubborn among them, who were the

youngest, still lived for a few hours with the illusion that…his name might be Lautaro.

• Subordinate adverb clause– Modify verbs, adjectives, adverbs, or verbals by telling

where, when, in what way, to what extent, under what condition, or why.

– Mousse is exhausted because he hiked a 14er.• Subordinate noun clause– Act as nouns– …she thanked them in tears for the dismissal, as if for

the greatest favor that had ever been done to her in this house

Parallelism

• Using the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance. – This can happen at the word, phrase, or clause level. – The usual way to join parallel structures is with the use of

coordinating conjunctions such as "and" or "or.“

Mary likes hiking, swimming, and bicycling.Mary likes to hike, to swim, and to ride a bicycle.Mary likes to hike, swim, and ride a bicycle.