Clauses (SVFL)

The dog is barking. My ears hurt. The dog is loud. -Surely it’s not that loud. -Lingo’s sentences are quite short and simple. Let’s look at one of them. Hunden skäller.

This is a sentence. Written sentences are indicated by starting with a capital letter and ending with a full stop, exclamation mark, or question mark. A sentence doesn’t need anything else for us to get what it means. Grammatically, it’s complete. A sentence can be short...

or long. Hunden skäller så väldigt högt att Lingo får ont i öronen och måste hålla för dem, men ekorren bryr sig inte. Long sentences usually consist of smaller parts, that hang together grammatically and could almost work as sentences on their own. These parts are called clauses. There is only one clause in this sentence: hunden skäller But in the longer sentence there are..

four. Almost always, a clause needs at least two elements. Clause elements The first clause element describes what is happening, or what the clause is about. The second clause element describes who, or what is doing the thing. This part of this clause describes what is happening: Skäller And this part describes who is doing it.

Hunden Together they make up the clause: Hunden skäller. Clauses too can be short or long. Den fina, lurviga hunden skäller verkligen jättehögt. Now, both clause elements are longer, but they still describe the same thing: what is happening and who is doing it. There are two types of clause.

Hunden skäller. Is a clause that can stand on its own. A main clause. A main clause could function as a complete sentence in itself. And also, a larger sentence can contain more than one main clause.

Hunden skäller och Lingo får ont i öronen. Hunden låter jättehögt, men ekorren sover. And look here. These small words: och, men are words that link different main clauses together. Conjunctions.

If we take them out, we get two independent clauses. Hunden skäller. Lingo får ont i öronen. Hunden låter jättehögt. Ekorren sover.

A main clause can thus always become a sentence in its own right. So, now we know what a main clause is. But there are other types of clause... Here is a new sentence with two clauses. Hunden skäller så att Lingo får ont i öronen.

Let’s separate them. But...this doesn’t work on its own, does it? ...så att Lingo får ont i öronen What is hurting Lingo’s ears? Without the first half of the sentence, we don’t know. So this clause can’t be a main clause. It’s a subordinate clause.

A subordinate clause is part of a main clause, and must be placed inside the main clause for us to understand the whole sentence. Let’s look at some more subordinate clauses eftersom den sover. What is sleeping? What’s the because about? We don’t know.

But if we put the subordinate clause into a main clause... we understand the sentence. Ekorren verkar inte vara rädd, eftersom den sover. What’s happening now? trots att hunden skäller.

This is another subordinate clause! Where should it go? A subordinate clause can actually be inside another subordinate clause. Like this. Ekorren verkar inte vara rädd, eftersom den sover trots att hunden skäller.

Subordinate clauses can also be at the beginning of the main clause. Fastän hunden skäller så högt sover ekorren If you join clauses together, you get a better flow. Right, Lingo? Lingo? -I can’t hear, because the dog is barking.