Clause structure

Clause structure

Clauses are the basic unit of any sentence. They consist of 2 key elements:

a subject (ie the actor or agent of the verb)
a predicate, which consists of a verb and usually some information about its goal or what it acts upon (ie the object).

Simple sentences can be made of a single clause:

diagram of how a clause breaks into subject and predicate and the predicate can be broken up into verb phrase, noun phrase and propositional phrase

Complex sentences consist of more than 1 clause:

A diagram showing how some complex sentences can be thought of as a main clause and a dependent clause

See also Subordination.