SINGLE WORDS & GROUPS OF WORDS

A word is a group of letters with a space on either side, which conveys a unit of meaning e.g. word, wordy, wordplay and worded are words.

A phrase is a group of words which acts as a unit. ‘A phrase’ is itself a phrase e.g.

- ‘A car’ is a noun phrase;
- To ‘put up with’ is a verb phrase, which is made up of 3 words, which together means to ‘tolerate’;
- ‘Very pretty’ is an adjectival phrase;
- ‘Quite quickly’ is an adverbial phrase;
- ‘In front of’ is a prepositional phrase.

Clauses contain both subject and verbs.

Some clauses are main or independent i.e. they are, or could be whole sentences and so, could exist alone e.g. She read the magazine.

Some clauses are dependent i.e. they must be linked before, within or after other clauses e.g.

DEPENDENT: Before he ate his lunch,
INDEPENDENT: he read the article
OR
He read the sports article [DEPENDENT:] because he was a sports fan.

MAIN CLAUSE: He read the article
DEPENDENT CLAUSE: while he ate his lunch.