Phrases, Clauses, and Sentences
Common Sentence Errors
Clauses and phrases are the building blocks of sentences. A phrase is a group of words that act as a part of speech but cannot stand alone as a sentence. Clauses are groups of words that have a subject and a predicate. Independent clauses express a complete thought and can stand alone as a sentence but subordinate clauses depend on other parts of the sentence to express a complete thought.
A sentence expresses a complete thought and contains a subject, a noun or pronoun, and a predicate, a verb or verb phrase. The four basic types of sentences—simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex—use phrases and clauses in varying degrees of complexity.
