What is a clause?

            What is a clause?             Read in Khmer

    A group of words that includes a subject and a verb, and forms a sentence or part of a sentence

 ( Oxford University Press, 2010:Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 8th edition)

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A clause can be   ៖

•       a main clause 
•    a dependent clause or (subordinate clause)

Ex: She comes to class regularly because she enjoys it very much.

`           main clause                            subordinate clause

• When he returns, he will tell you what you want to know.

                      subordinate clause              main claus

Note:

A main clause can stand alone, but a dependent clause can’t ​because it doesn’t have a complete meaning. We can say ‘ She comes to class regularly’. It has a complete meaning.

But we can’t say ‘because she enjoys it very much’​​ because it doesn’t make sense on its own.

       A Subordinate clause can stand in front of or after the main clause. But notice that when the subordinate clause stands before the main clause, there is a comma after it.

• After she got her master degree, she decided to teach at universities. 

(after she got her master degree=dependent clause) 

• She decided to teach at universities after she got her master degree.