Main and subordinate clauses

Writers, whether novelists or people writing personal letters to family and friends, put clauses together into sentences, and it is for this activity that main clauses and the different types of subordinate clause are essential. Some sentences in texts (text sentences, corresponding to text clauses) resemble the examples in (1) in consisting of a single main clause, but many consist of several clauses. Depending on what types of clause are combined, two types of multi-clause sentence are distinguished. Compound sentences consist of two or more clauses joined by conjunctions. Examples are given in (2).

In (2a), the clauses Captain Benwick married Louisa Hayter and Captain Wentworth married Anne Elliott are conjoined by and; in (2b) the clauses Henry Crawford loved Fanny and Fanny loved Edmund are conjoined by but; and in (2c) the clauses Mr Bingley became tired of Jane and Mr D’Arcy persuaded Mr Bingley to go to London are conjoined by or. In (2a–c), the conjoined clauses are all main clauses, but subordinate clauses can also be conjoined, as we will see after the following discussion of subordinate clauses.