Words work in groups. You have met prepositional phrases, appositives and compound subjects and verbs. Every group of words is either a phrase or a clause.
- A clause has its own subject and its own verb: the bell rang, because she was tired.
- A phrase lacks a subject, a verb, or both: after the long game, was waiting, to win the race.
Key idea
A clause = a subject + its verb. No pair, no clause, however long the group is.
Why it works
Clauses are the building blocks of sentences. Every sentence has at least one; how many it has, and how they are joined, decides its structure and its punctuation.
Worked example: Same start, different groups
Phrase or clause: “before breakfast” and “before we ate breakfast”?
- “before breakfast” has no verb: a phrase.
- “before we ate breakfast” has the subject we and the verb ate: a clause.
Answer: phrase, then clause
Common mistake
Thinking any long group of words is a clause, or that a clause has to be a whole sentence. “The tall girl in the bright red coat by the door” is long but has no verb: a phrase. “Because it rained” is short, has a subject and a verb, and is a clause, though not a sentence.