Advertisement

Advertisement

subordinate clause

noun

, Grammar.
  1. a clause that modifies the principal clause or some part of it or that serves a noun function in the principal clause, as when she arrived in the sentence I was there when she arrived or that she has arrived in the sentence I doubt that she has arrived.


subordinate clause

noun

  1. grammar a clause with an adjectival, adverbial, or nominal function, rather than one that functions as a separate sentence in its own right Compare coordinate clause main clause
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Discover More

Example Sentences

I still see those branching sentence diagrams in my head when I am constructing subordinate clauses.

A subordinate clause to these statements, drawn from Pages 9 and 10 of the Mueller report, would help illuminate the troubling reasons Mueller postulated for his findings of insufficient evidence:

“One yearns for a subordinate clause, a compound-complex sentence being too much to hope for,” he observed.

“I had to take out a lot of subordinate clauses out and write more independent statements, to build through parataxis. I had to shift the complexity from the syntax to images.”

The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2002, and she considered her translation — which mirrored Sebald’s labyrinthine German sentences, peppered with subordinate clauses — among her finest achievements, her son said.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement