Phrases & Clauses
Understand and analyse the function of phrases (noun, verb, adjectival, adverbial, prepositional) and clauses (main, subordinate, relative) in general and in specific sentences, including recognising and correcting misplaced and dangling modifiers
What a learner can do afterwards
- Identify a prepositional phrase acting as an adverbial and explain its role in the sentence
- Distinguish between a main clause and a subordinate clause and explain their relationship
- Spot a dangling modifier in a sentence and rewrite it to remove the ambiguity
The lesson
You already know how relative clauses add detail to a noun and how expanded noun phrases describe things. Now zoom out: every sentence is built from phrases and clauses working together. A clause is built around a verb and has its own subject. A phrase is a group of words acting as one unit, but it can't make a full point by itself.
"The cat slept on the mat." "On the mat" is a prepositional phrase: it starts with the preposition on and ends with the noun mat. It tells you where the cat slept, so it acts as an adverbial, describing the verb slept.
"Walking home from school, the rain soaked her backpack." This sounds like the rain was walking home, which makes no sense. The describing phrase "walking home from school" needs to sit next to the person doing the walking. Fix it: "Walking home from school, she got soaked by the rain."
To catch a dangling modifier, check the word right after the comma. Ask: is that who or what is actually doing the action described in the phrase? If not, rewrite the sentence so it is.
Clauses have their own subject and verb, phrases work as one unit but don't stand alone, and a describing phrase must sit right next to the thing it describes.
Watch it
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.