I am curious if anyone is aware of a list of different types or categories of independent clauses. By comparison, there are four types of sentences (simple, compound, complex, and compounds complex), and many types of subordinate clauses (comparative clauses, that-clauses, contact clauses, etc.). However, I haven't been able to find a breakdown of different types of independent clause. I'm especially interested in a categorization by structure. For example, some sentences have compound subjects, others have compound predicates, others have the verbs omitted, etc. I have tried on my own, but I fear I'm reinventing the wheel. Your help is certainly appreciated.
Learn English – Types of Independent Clauses
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The second sentence is not just a list of phrases. It is a list of clauses. Each of the clauses are independent and could stand alone as a sentence.
The weather is warm.
Campsites are abundant.
And insects are scarce.
The series of clauses could be joined to the first sentence with a semicolon, but it is not necessary. Each clause could stand alone, or they could be joined as a series in a sentence, as they are in the example.
If they were phrases that were not independent clauses, a colon (not a semicolon) might be more appropriate if you restructured the sentence.
Autumn is an excellent time to enjoy the outdoor charms: warm weather, abundant campsites, and scarce insects.
I’m afraid that identifying types of clauses is much like identifying parts of speech. It depends who’s doing the analysis and what purpose they plan to put that to just which ones you get.
Once you split between dependent and independent clauses, or clauses that stand in for another part of speech like noun, adjective, or adverb, the entire thing becomes as much fun as counting angels dancing on pinheads.
That’s why you find various mention of adjective clauses, concessive clauses, free relative clauses, manner clauses, reinforcement clauses, counterfactual conditional clauses, adverbial clauses, nonfinite relative clauses, integrated relative clauses, time adverb clauses, participle clauses, reduced relative clauses, embedded clauses, nonfinite clauses, noun clauses, verb-first clauses, time clauses, gerund clauses, elliptical clauses, matrix clauses, content clauses, purpose clauses, cause clauses, bear clawses, nonrestrictive relative clauses, dependent clauses, difficult-to-classify clauses, correlative clauses, subordinate clauses, exclamative clauses, contrast clauses, to-infinitive clauses, finite clauses, condition clauses, restrictive relative clauses, factual conditional clauses, nominal relative clauses, argument clauses, addition clauses, apposition clauses, defining clauses, place adverb clauses, santa clauses, result clauses, concession clauses, summary clauses, adjunct clauses, reason clauses, conditional clauses, nominal -ing clauses, independent clauses, predicative clauses, small clauses, place clauses, and Wh-clauses.
It gets exhausting after a while, and that list isn’t even exhaustive. Just imagine it if were!
Best Answer
To say "independent clause" is to say "simple sentence". A single clause that stands by itself is a main clause, and that's all you need for simple sentencehood.
There are many different things one can do to a main clause,
but normally independent utterances are classified by pragmatic function:
The names in parentheses are often called "moods" because Latin (and other ancient languages) had special verb forms for them and gave them these names. The technical term for them is "speech acts", and they're different in pragmatics -- use -- but not really in semantics -- meaning.
That is, there's no real semantic difference between the first three sentences; they refer to the same idea in the same words. The difference is in what the speaker expects the listener to do:
believe the statement, answer the question, or obey the order.