Unit 7 · Topic 7.4

7.4 Clauses, coordination and subordination

Every sentence needs at least one independent clause, a group of words that can stand alone as a sentence. Writers combine clauses through coordination, which presents ideas as equals, or subordination, which makes one idea depend on another. These choices tell readers which ideas matter most and how they relate.

Key terms

independent clause
dependent clause
coordination
subordination
coordinating conjunction
subordinating conjunction

Clauses: independent and dependent

A clause has a subject and a verb. An independent clause can stand alone: "The bus was late." A dependent (subordinate) clause can't, because it begins with a word that ties it to something else: "because the bus was late," "which the bus driver noticed." A phrase is a group of words without its own subject-verb pair: "after the storm," "running for the bus."

A dependent clause punctuated as a full sentence is a fragment: "Because the bus was late." On writing questions, fragments and their opposite, run-ons, are common wrong answers.

Coordination: ideas as equals

Coordination joins two independent clauses with a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) and a comma, or with a semicolon. It signals balance: both ideas carry similar weight. "The plan saves money, but it costs time" gives the saving and the cost equal billing.

Abraham Lincoln uses coordination to make the two sides of the Civil War equal in one sentence of his Second Inaugural Address (1865): "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other." The sentence never names North or South. "Both" and "each" treat the two sides identically, and joining the clauses with "and" gives their shared faith and their conflict equal weight. The balanced structure supports his point that neither side could claim God's exclusive favor.

Subordination: one idea on top

Subordination puts one idea in a dependent clause, so it supports the main idea in the independent clause. Common subordinating words show the relationship:

Relationship	Subordinating words
Cause	because, since, as
Contrast or concession	although, though, even though, whereas, while
Condition	if, unless, as long as, provided that
Time	when, after, before, until, once
Description	who, which, that (relative pronouns)

Choosing between them

Readers treat the independent clause as the main point. So the same two facts can send opposite messages: "Although the plan saves money, it costs students time" emphasizes the cost; "Although the plan costs students time, it saves money" emphasizes the saving. Put the idea you want readers to remember in the independent clause.

Coordination is clearer when the ideas really are equal, or when you want to show a sharp contrast. Subordination is better when one idea explains, limits or concedes something about another. On the exam, you'll mostly analyze these structures in reading passages and choose among them in writing questions, so focus on what each choice emphasizes.

Worked examples

Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.

Example 1
Choosing a combination for a writer's purpose
Practice draft (written for this practice set): A student is arguing that the town should keep its public pool open. She writes two sentences: "The pool costs the town money every summer. It is the only place many children can learn to swim." Which revision best combines the sentences to support her argument? (A) The pool costs the town money every summer, and it is the only place many children can learn to swim. (B) Although the pool costs the town money every summer, it is the only place many children can learn to swim. (C) Although it is the only place many children can learn to swim, the pool costs the town money every summer. (D) The pool costs the town money every summer, it is the only place many children can learn to swim.
Show the solutionHide the solution
1. Step 1: Identify the writer's purpose: keep the pool open. The idea that helps her most is that children learn to swim there.
2. Step 2: (A) uses coordination, which treats cost and benefit as equals. It's grammatical but doesn't favor her side.
3. Step 3: (B) puts the cost in a dependent "although" clause, conceding it, and puts the benefit in the independent clause, where readers expect the main point.
4. Step 4: (C) reverses the emphasis: the cost becomes the main point, which undercuts her argument.
5. Step 5: (D) joins two independent clauses with only a comma, which is a comma splice.
Answer: (B). Subordinating the cost and keeping the benefit in the independent clause concedes the weakness while emphasizing the reason to keep the pool.

Common mistakes

Putting your main point in the dependent clause, so the sentence emphasizes the idea you meant to concede.
Joining two independent clauses with only a comma (a comma splice). Use a comma plus a coordinating conjunction, a semicolon, or subordination.
Punctuating a dependent clause as a sentence, creating a fragment such as "Because the results were unclear."
Choosing "and" when the ideas contrast. If the second idea pushes against the first, "but" or "although" shows the relationship.

On the exam

Writing questions often offer several grammatical ways to combine sentences. The right answer is the one whose emphasis fits the writer's purpose, so ask which idea belongs in the independent clause.
In rhetorical analysis, noticing balanced coordination or deliberate subordination in a key sentence gives you a precise syntax point to analyze.

Connected topics

Videos

AP English Language: Introduction to Syntax
Marco LearningWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Dependent and independent clauses | Syntax | Khan Academy
Khan AcademyWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Subordination and Coordination | Praxis Core Writing | Khan Academy
Khan Academy PraxisWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
The 4 English Sentence Types – simple, compound, complex, compound-complex
Adam’s English Lessons · engVidWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Subordinating conjunctions | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy
Khan AcademyWatch on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Check yourself

2 questions on 7.4 Clauses, coordination and subordination. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.

STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not.

Francis Bacon, "Of Studies," from Essays (1625 edition); the opening of the essay, in a modernized-spelling text that keeps some older forms: "proyning" means pruning, "contemn" means scorn, "conference" means conversation, and "maketh" means makes.

Question 1 of 2

The sentence "Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them" is arranged so that

I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,—that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

[. . .] The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them.

But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day.

[. . .] A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.—‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’—Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance," from Essays: First Series (1841). Bracketed ellipses mark omitted text.

Question 2 of 2

In the sentence "Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day," the clause beginning with "though" primarily

0 of 2 answered