Phrases v Clauses

so in this segment I'm going to give you the most important question that you can ask in trying to map out and identify sentence types the most important question that you can ask is not what is my sentence type but it's this so too often when we start looking at our sentences and start trying to think about well what kind of sentence am working with or how do punctuate it or what do do we make the mistake of assuming that we're working with sentence what want you to do when you're looking at parts of sentence to understand relationships in the sentence or punctuation or sentence types is to first ask this question is it and it refers to the word group I'm looking at is my word group phrase or Clause is it phrase or clause if you'll first ask this question you are going to much more easily be able to answer punctuation questions agreement and reference questions and sentence type questions let me put some examples up and we'll talk through those okay so have up here on the board sentence after eating lesie took her test now let's say I'm trying to figure out what type of sentence I'm dealing with here's the mistake that so many students make they go I've got word group is this dependent or independent because I'm trying to figure out what type of clause have well you've skipped this important question every time I'm analyzing word group in my sentence the first question that you ask yourself is is my word group phrase or clause now before we start identifying in this sentence what's phrase or what's clause let's just simply talk about how do we have clause and what is phrase phrase is word group phrase is word group let me give you an example okay in this sentence here in the red have will eat bananas and drink juice now have here two verb phrases this is my Fanboy coordinating conjunction and in fact it's linking to verb phrases phrase typically has sub subject or verb so noun or verb but not both when have both subject and verb then I'm dealing with clause it takes my phrase and it puts it it makes it into clause so let's relook at this sentence and this first part of my sentence is actually clause because have my subject subject and my verb and after the Fanboy drink juice is phrase it's another verb phrase so remember will eat bananas and drink juice that is one single Clause because it has subject and verb you can have multiple verbs in the claw so will eat bananas and drink juice however if put in don't know will eat bananas and will drink juice now I've introduced another subject to go with this verb will drink juice and have clause so Fanboy words can connect words phrases or Clauses so in this case have will eat bananas subject and verb and will drink juice subject and verb two Clauses two Clauses so let's go back up here to this word Group after eating lesie took her test and what I'm trying to figure out is do have multiple clo es in this sentence or do have combination of phrase and clause let's analyze I've got an introductory word group and typically if have an introductory group or something offset by comma want to analyze am dealing with phrase word group in other words or clause well let's look let's isolate after eating after eating again don't start thinking is this dependent CL or is it independent what type of sentence am dealing with ask yourself is it phrase or clause so after eating has verb form but no subject so therefore after eating is simply phrase lesie took the test we now have subject and verb so have here clause and this is in another segment in terms of sentence mapping but if were to look at this sentence have one Clause therefore this would be simple sentence I'm going to give you two more examples and want you to look through these to help determine is this word group phrase or clause okay so again when I'm looking at word groups and analyzing my sentences want to first ask myself when see word group is the word group phrase or is it clause and that's my first question that ask is it phrase or qu Clause the second question I'm going to kind of make this into formula is if it's clause then is it independent or dependent so these are the two basic questions need to ask before tackle sentence mapping punctuation and agreement is the word group or phrase or clause and if then or in other words if it's clause is it independent or dependent so let's look at several sentences and go through this process first of all Bill took the folder in order to figure out again is it phrase or clause have to remember that clause has what two components both subject and verb so in this sentence bill is my subject took is the verb so know that I'm dealing with clause if it's clause now can go to that next step to say is it independent or dependent well all independent means is that that Clause can stand alone as its own sentence it's not dependent on any other information in the sentence to be standalone so think independent yay can do little independent cheer I'm independent I'm My Own sentence well Bill took the folder we've identified first that it's phrase or Clause that it's clause because it has subject and verb then we say can it do the little chair and say yay I'm independent can stand alone in fact it can that's full and complete sentence so here we have an independent clause now let's go to our next sentence remember mentioned that often if we have word group offset by comma that's an indicator we need to analyze if we have phrase or clause so before leaving the meeting Bill took the folder now already know that bill took the folder because it has subject and verb that this is an independent clause well what about the new content that added to the sentence before leaving the meeting remember when I'm analyzing my sentences to figure out if have whole and complete sentence and then how to punctuate it make it agree and map it out need to first ask is this word group phrase or clause so I'm going to ask myself that before leaving the meeting is it phrase or clause well we have no subject have verb type here have Jaren verb but have no subject so this is in fact phrase this is in fact phrase so have one independent clause phrases are sort of NE and they don't phrases don't impact the type of sentence that have this is one independent clause let's look at one more sentence I'm going to change this just slightly and we'll reevaluate okay now our sentence says before he left the meeting Bill took the folder again Bill took the folder we know that this is an independent clause let's look at our fatory or introductory phrase or Clause figure out what it is before he left the meeting is it phrase or clause well we've got subject I'm actually going to put little dotted line because it's secondary subject and left we have our secondary verb it's not the main subject and verb but we do have secondary subject and verb so is it phrase or clause this is clause I'm dealing with clause so before he left the meeting since it's clause it's is it independent or dependent well can before he left the meeting do little cheer and no he can't it's not standalone sentence before he left the meeting is dependent on additional information in order to Standalone so know that this introductory phrase is in fact dependent clause so this sentence has one independent clause and one dependent clause which we know is complex sentence so remember when you're getting ready to map out your sentences when you're analyzing word groups the first question that you ask yourself is is the word group phrase or clause