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main clause

noun

Grammar.
  1. a clause that can stand alone as a sentence, containing a subject and a predicate with a finite verb, as I was there in the sentence I was there when he arrived.



main clause

noun

  1. grammar a clause that can stand alone as a sentence Compare subordinate clause

“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Perhaps knowing the difference between a main clause and a dependent clause doesn’t matter so much so long as you can intuit the difference.

A common error in student writing is to shift the tense from a main clause to a subordinate one even when they refer to the same time period.

Most commonly it ends up there when it introduces an explanation that has been preposed in front of a main clause, as in: "Because you're mine, I walk the line."

The objection is that the interposed phrase or clause needlessly interrupts the natural order of the main clause.

But she repeated the main clause in her creed: "Alfred'll come back."

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