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4.5: Adverbial Clauses

  • Page ID
    108087
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    Adverbial Clauses

    A sentence is a group of words with at least a subject and a verb organized around ne idea.  Sentences can be short or long.  For example, “I am a man.” is a sentence, and “I have done many things in my life such as traveling around the world two times and learning to speak many languages” is also a sentence.  The form of an English sentence is as follows:

    Subject Verb        Object         Place   Time     Adverbial Clause.

    Notice that there is no punctuation in the above because everything is in its place.  If a writer moves anything out of its place and puts it before the subject of the sentences, then a comma is necessary.  For example:

    I am writing this sentence in my office right now because I want you to understand about adverbial clauses and commas. 

    Because I want you to understand about adverbial clauses and commas, I am writing this sentence in my office right now.

    Notice how I used a comma in the second sentence and not in the first sentence even though they say exactly the same thing.

    Basically, when writing if anything comes before the subject of the sentences, then the writer should use a comma.  Many writers, however, don’t use commas if what comes before the subject is one or two common words.  For example:

    I ate eggs for breakfast this morning.

    This morning I ate eggs for breakfast.

    Below is a list of adverbials in English.  An adverbial clause begins with an adverbial, has a subject and a verb (and maybe an object, place, and time), but it can not stand alone.  It needs another part of a sentence to make sense.  For example:

    Although it is raining outside has a subject and verb; however, it doesn’t make any sense.

    Although it is raining outside, the man decided to lie on the grass and read a book.

    The second sentence makes sense because the man decided to lie on the grass and read a book gives meaning to Although it is raining outside.

     

    Another example:

    Because you want to learn English has a subject and verb, but it doesn’t make sense.  It can’t stand alone.  It needs more information in order to make sense.

    Because you want to learn English, you come to school every day and do your homework.

    As with the first sentence, Because you want to learn English only has meaning when you add you come to school every day and do your homework.


    This page titled 4.5: Adverbial Clauses is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Don Bissonnette.

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