Grammar Cats

Ramsey

Hedwig

Subordination

•Subordination: connecting two unequal but related clauses with a subordinating conjunction to form a complex sentence.

•The dependent clause develops the main clause

Most Commonly Used Subordinate Conjunctions• after

• although

• as

• as if

• an in

• as long as

• as though

• because

• before

• despite

• even though

• if

• in order that

• since

• so

• so that

• though

•whereas

• unless

• until

•when

•whenever

•where

• how

• last

• now that

• once

• provided

• rather than

• than

• that

•wherever

• Fragment: Because he was hiding in the bookshelf.

• Full sentence: I could not find Hedwig because he was hiding in the bookshelf.

Subordinate conjunction = subordinate clause

Independent clause

•Because can start a sentence as long as you include the main clause later in the sentence!

Because it was warm, Hedwig and Ramsey slept in the sun.

Because it was warm.

Bad

Good

Example•Hedwig likes puzzles.

He also likes getting attention. He wants to be wherever I am. He thinks that each puzzle piece is a cat toy.

• Because he likes getting attention, Hedwig follows me around, which means that when I set up a puzzle, he thinks that each piece is his own cat toy.

Tattle tale.

Famous examples of complex sentencesIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it

was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

- Charles DickinsA Tale of Two Cities 1859

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat; it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.- The Hobbit 1937JRR Tolkien

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

The Catcher in the RyeJD Salinger, 1951