CLAUSES.

 

Definition.

 

370.A clause is a division of a sentence, containing a verb with its subject.

 

Hence the term clause may refer to the main division of the complex sentence, or it may be applied to the others,—the dependent or subordinate clauses.

 

Independent clause.

 

371.A principal, main, or independent clause is one making a statement without the help of any other clause.

 

Dependent clause.

 

A subordinate or dependent clause is one which makes a statement depending upon or modifying some word in the principal clause.

 

Kinds.

 

372.As to their office in the sentence, clauses are divided into NOUN, ADJECTIVE, and ADVERB clauses, according as they are equivalent in use to nouns, adjectives, or adverbs.

 

Noun Clauses.

 

373.Noun clauses have the following uses:—

 

(1) Subject: "That such men should give prejudiced views of America is not a matter of surprise."

 

(2) Object of a verb, verbal, or the equivalent of a verb: (a) "I confess these stories, for a time, put an end to my fancies;" (b) "I am aware [I know] that a skillful illustrator of the immortal bard would have swelled the materials."

 

Just as the object noun, pronoun, infinitive, etc., is retained after a passive verb (Sec. 352, 5), so the object clause is retained, and should not be called an adjunct of the subject; for example, "We are persuaded that a thread runs through all things;" "I was told that the house had not been shut, night or day, for a hundred years."

 

(3) Complement: "The terms of admission to this spectacle are, that he have a certain solid and intelligible way of living."

 

(4) Apposition. (a) Ordinary apposition, explanatory of some noun or its equivalent: "Cecil's saying of Sir Walter Raleigh, 'I know that he can toil terribly,' is an electric touch."

 

(b) After "it introductory" (logically this is a subject clause, but it is often treated as in apposition with it): "It was the opinion of some, that this might be the wild huntsman famous in German legend."

 

(5) Object of a preposition: "At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs."

 

Notice that frequently only the introductory word is the object of the preposition, and the whole clause is not; thus, "The rocks presented a high impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came tumbling."

 

374.Here are to be noticed certain sentences seemingly complex, with a noun clause in apposition with it; but logically they are nothing but simple sentences. But since they are complex in form, attention is called to them here; for example,—

 

"Alas! it is we ourselves that are getting buried alive under this avalanche of earthly impertinences."

 

To divide this into two clauses—(a) It is we ourselves, (b) that are ... impertinences—would be grammatical; but logically the sentence is, We ourselves are getting ... impertinences, and it is ... that is merely a framework used to effect emphasis. The sentence shows how it may lose its pronominal force.

 

Other examples of this construction are,—

 

"It is on the understanding, and not on the sentiment, of a nation, that all safe legislation must be based."

 

"Then it is that deliberative Eloquence lays aside the plain attire of her daily occupation."

 

Exercise.

 

Tell how each noun clause is used in these sentences:—

 

1. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.

 

2. But the fact is, I was napping.

 

3. Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the aspect of the building.

 

4. Except by what he could see for himself, he could know nothing.

 

5. Whatever he looks upon discloses a second sense.

 

6. It will not be pretended that a success in either of these kinds is quite coincident with what is best and inmost in his mind.

 

7. The reply of Socrates, to him who asked whether he should choose a wife, still remains reasonable, that, whether he should choose one or not, he would repent it.

 

8. What history it had, how it changed from shape to shape, no man will ever know.

 

9. Such a man is what we call an original man.

 

10. Our current hypothesis about Mohammed, that he was a scheming impostor, a falsehood incarnate, that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity, begins really to be no longer tenable to anyone.

 

Adjective Clauses.

 

375.As the office of an adjective is to modify, the only use of an adjective clause is to limit or describe some noun, or equivalent of a noun: consequently the adjective may modify any noun, or equivalent of a noun, in the sentence.

 

The adjective clause may be introduced by the relative pronouns who, which, that, but, as; sometimes by the conjunctions when, where, whither, whence, wherein, whereby, etc.

 

Frequently there is no connecting word, a relative pronoun being understood.

 

Examples of adjective clauses.

 

376.Adjective clauses may modify—

 

(1) The subject: "The themes it offers for contemplation are too vast for their capacities;" "Those who see the Englishman only in town, are apt to form an unfavorable opinion of his social character."

 

(2) The object: "From this piazza Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the center of the mansion."

 

(3) The complement: "The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but his usefulness;" "It was such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight."

 

(4) Other words: "He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle;" "No whit anticipating the oblivion which awaited their names and feats, the champions advanced through the lists;" "Charity covereth a multitude of sins, in another sense than that in which it is said to do so in Scripture."

 

Exercise.

 

Pick out the adjective clauses, and tell what each one modifies; i.e., whether subject, object, etc.

 

1. There were passages that reminded me perhaps too much of Massillon.

 

2. I walked home with Calhoun, who said that the principles which I had avowed were just and noble.

 

3. Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds.

 

4. In one of those celestial days when heaven and earth meet and adorn each other, it seems a pity that we can only spend it once.

 

5. One of the maidens presented a silver cup, containing a rich mixture of wine and spice, which Rowena tasted.

 

6. No man is reason or illumination, or that essence we were looking for.

 

7. In the moment when he ceases to help us as a cause, he begins to help us more as an effect.

 

8. Socrates took away all ignominy from the place, which could not be a prison whilst he was there.

 

9. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear ghosts except in our long-established Dutch settlements.

 

10. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy.

 

11. Nature waited tranquilly for the hour to be struck when man should arrive.

 

Adverbial Clauses.

 

377.The adverb clause takes the place of an adverb in modifying a verb, a verbal, an adjective, or an adverb. The student has met with many adverb clauses in his study of the subjunctive mood and of subordinate conjunctions; but they require careful study, and will be given in detail, with examples.

 

378.Adverb clauses are of the following kinds:

 

(1) TIME: "As we go, the milestones are grave-stones;" "He had gone but a little way before he espied a foul fiend coming;" "When he was come up to Christian, he beheld him with a disdainful countenance."

 

(2) PLACE: "Wherever the sentiment of right comes in, it takes precedence of everything else;" "He went several times to England, where he does not seem to have attracted any attention."

 

(3) REASON, or CAUSE: "His English editor lays no stress on his discoveries, since he was too great to care to be original;" "I give you joy that truth is altogether wholesome."

 

(4) MANNER: "The knowledge of the past is valuable only as it leads us to form just calculations with respect to the future;" "After leaving the whole party under the table, he goes away as if nothing had happened."

 

(5) DEGREE, or COMPARISON: "They all become wiser than they were;" "The right conclusion is, that we should try, so far as we can, to make up our shortcomings;" "Master Simon was in as chirping a humor as a grasshopper filled with dew [is];" "The broader their education is, the wider is the horizon of their thought." The first clause in the last sentence is dependent, expressing the degree in which the horizon, etc., is wider.

 

(6) PURPOSE: "Nature took us in hand, shaping our actions, so that we might not be ended untimely by too gross disobedience."

 

(7) RESULT, or CONSEQUENCE: "He wrote on the scale of the mind itself, so that all things have symmetry in his tablet;" "The window was so far superior to every other in the church, that the vanquished artist killed himself from mortification."

 

(8) CONDITION: "If we tire of the saints, Shakespeare is our city of refuge;" "Who cares for that, so thou gain aught wider and nobler?" "You can die grandly, and as goddesses would die were goddesses mortal."

 

(9) CONCESSION, introduced by indefinite relatives, adverbs, and adverbial conjunctions,—whoever, whatever, however, etc.: "But still, however good she may be as a witness, Joanna is better;" "Whatever there may remain of illiberal in discussion, there is always something illiberal in the severer aspects of study."

 

These mean no matter how good, no matter what remains, etc.

 

Exercise.

 

Pick out the adverbial clauses in the following sentences; tell what kind each is, and what it modifies:—

 

1. As I was clearing away the weeds from this epitaph, the little sexton drew me on one side with a mysterious air, and informed me in a low voice that once upon a time, on a dark wintry night, when the wind was unruly, howling and whistling, banging about doors and windows, and twirling weathercocks, so that the living were frightened out of their beds, and even the dead could not sleep quietly in their graves, the ghost of honest Preston was attracted by the well-known call of "waiter," and made its sudden appearance just as the parish clerk was singing a stave from the "mirrie garland of Captain Death."

 

2. If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble because they had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas.

 

3. The spell of life went forth from her ever-creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand objects, as a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied.