28 · Clauses
Main and dependent clauses
A clause can stand as the main statement or become part of a larger clause. In She knew the engine stalled, the engine stalled has its own subject and predicate, but the whole clause fills the object position after knew. That makes it a dependent clause.
the relationship
The same words can be main or dependent
The engine stalled stands alone as the main clause.
The same words are embedded as the object of knew.
The first version makes the engine stalled the main clause. The second embeds those words as the object of knew. Replacing the embedded run with it—She knew it—supports that object boundary, but replacement does not define every dependent clause.
Stalled carries tense, so the inner unit is a finite clause. The same clause also does a noun-phrase-like job as the object of knew, so the course calls it nominal. One label describes its verb form and the other describes its place in the larger clause.
Two verbs are a clue, not a conclusion.
A verb phrase can contain helping verbs, and coordination can put two clauses side by side. Find the inner frame, then ask whether it fills a role inside another frame or stands beside it as an equal coordinate.
Ten sentences from this lesson, one decision at a time.