Dependent clauses can refer to the subject (who, which) the sequence/time (since, while), or the causal elements (because, if) of the independent clause. Here are a few examples: “Where? When? In what way?”Ī complex sentence contains at least one independent clause and at least one dependent clause. A prepositional phrase answers one of many questions. Prepositional Phrase: A phrase that begins with a preposition (i.e., in, at for, behind, until, after, of, during) and modifies a word in the sentence. Determine the object in a sentence by asking the question “The subject did what?” or “To whom?/For whom?” Object: A person, animal, place, thing, or concept that receives the action. It links the subject, in this case 'the movie,' to the complement or the predicate of the sentence, in this case, 'good.') (The be verb is also sometimes referred to as a copula or a linking verb. Determine the verb in a sentence by asking the question “What was the action or what happened?” Verb: Expresses what the person, animal, place, thing, or concept does. Determine the subject in a sentence by asking the question “Who or what?” Subject: A person, animal, place, thing, or concept that does an action. This is also known as a subordinate clause. It must be attached to an independent clause to become complete.

It contains a subject and a verb and is a complete idea.ĭependent clause: A dependent clause is not a complete sentence. Independent clause: An independent clause can stand alone as a sentence. Key: Yellow, bold = subject green underline = verb, blue, italics = object, pink, regular font = prepositional phrase Please see these archived webinars for more information. The Mastering the Mechanics webinar series also describes required sentence elements and varying sentence types.

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