What is an independent clause Is it the divided up of structures in a sentence?
First, the difference between a clause and a phrase. A phrase is a group of words; a clause is a group of words that has a subject and a verb. For example, “in a minute” is a phrase–it’s a group of words, but it lacks a subject/verb pair. But “I will be there in a minute” is a clause–“I” is the subject and “will be” is the verb. Now, the difference between an independent and dependent clause is in whether or not the clause can stand alone as a sentence. As you might guess, an independent clause is the one that can stand alone; this is because it expresses a whole, complete thought. For example “I like you” is an independent clause. By contrast, “Because I like you” isn’t a complete thought–thus, it is a dependent clause. It still has a subject/verb pair (“I like”), but it doesn’t express a complete thought. To make a complete sentence using one or more dependent clauses, it/they must be attached to an independent clause. Using my previous example, here is a dependent clause-independ
