Sentence Complexity and Embedding

Subordination

The first step of separating the clauses from each other can be accomplished by looking for the subject-predicate pairings and figuring out which phrases go along with each clause; every word must be part of one of the two clauses.  Then the step of identifying which clause is the main clause and which clause is a subordinate clause can be accomplished by imagining a friend walking up to you and saying just one of the two clauses you have just found.  If the clause would seem fairly normal in this scenario, you have found the main clause.  If the clause would seem bizarre, then you have found the subordinate clause.

The tests noted above are fairly simplistic ones for main v. subordinate clauses, but they can be useful for getting started.   The traditional way of explaining a complex sentence is to say that it consists of an independent clause and a dependent clause, and that the independent clause can stand alone, but the dependent clause can’t.  This is essentially the same explanation as given above. To go further we need more technical explanations.

A slightly different explanation of the difference between the two clauses does not highlight the nature of each clause as an entity alone, but rather the relationship of the two clauses to each other.  We can say that in a complex sentence the subordinate clause plays a functional, syntactic role for an entity in the main clause.  That is, the subordinate clause may provide further information about some aspect within the main clause.  For example, the subordinate clause could tell when the action in the main clause happens (sentences 1 and 2 in Activity 14.1), or it could tell what a person or thing in the main clause is like (sentences 5 and 6), or it could tell what someone said or what made something happen (sentences 3 and 4).  In short, a subordinate clause can function in the same ways that adverbs, adjectives, and nouns can function in a sentence.

Subordination v. Compounding

At this point it might be useful to contrast the two types of combined sentences that we have identified so far.  Both compound and complex sentences are sentences that have at least two clauses in them.  In a compound sentence, the two clauses are combined together using either a coordinating conjunction or a correlative conjunction, and the two clauses are equal to each other.  That is, the two clauses bear a meaning-based relationship to each other, not a syntactic relationship.  In a complex sentence, on the other hand, the two clauses are combined together in a way that makes one of them, the subordinate clause, a smaller piece of the other clause, the main clause.  This subordinate relationship exists on both a meaning and a syntactic level.

Activity 14.2: Compound or Complex?

Each sentence below contains two clauses.  Determine whether it is a compound or complex sentence and write the answer in the space provided.

1. Batman drives a car, but Superman flies in the air. ____________________
2. Superman has superpowers because he is from another planet. ____________________
3. Superman has superpowers, for he is from another planet. ____________________
4. Batman has a butler who helps him. _________________
5. Batman lives in Metropolis, while Batman lives in Gotham City. ____________________
6. Although Superman is strong, kryptonite makes him weak. _____________________
7. Clark Kent is Superman, and Bruce Wayne is Batman. _____________________
8. No one knows that Clark Kent is Superman. ____________________

Answers

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