Functions of dependent clauses

One way to classify dependent clauses is by function; that is, by the roles they play in the clauses they are subordinate to. Since the same dependent clause might have different roles in different sentences, this classification must be applied on a per-sentence basis.

Under this classification scheme, there are three main types of dependent clauses: noun clauses,adjective clauses, and adverb clauses, so called for their syntactic and semantic resemblance to noun phrases, adjective phrases, and adverbials, respectively. The exact uses of each vary somewhat from language to language, but a noun clause typically acts as the subject of a verb or as the object of a verb or preposition, as in these English examples:

• "What you say is not as important as how you say it."
• "I imagine that they're having a good time."
• "I keep thinking about what happened yesterday."

Clause and Phrase

Clauses are often contrasted with phrases. Traditionally, a clause was said to have both a finite verb and its subject, whereas a phrase either contained a finite verb but not its subject (in which case it is a verb phrase) or did not contain a finite verb. Hence, in the sentence "I didn't know that the dog ran through the yard," "that the dog ran through the yard" is a clause, as is the sentence as a whole, while "the yard," "through the yard," "ran through the yard," and "the dog" are all phrases. However, modern linguists do not draw the same distinction, as they accept the idea of a non-finite clause, a clause that is organized around a non-finite verb.

Clause

In grammar, a clause is a pair of words or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in some languages and some types of clauses, the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase. It may instead be marked on the verb (this is especially common in null subject languages.) The most basic kind of sentence consists of a single clause; more complicated sentences may contain multiple clauses, including clauses contained within clauses.