Glossary
independent clause
An independent clause has its own subject and a finite verb and can stand alone as a sentence; a dependent clause has the same parts and still cannot.
An independent clause is a group of words with its own subject and a finite verb that can stand alone as a sentence. The nurse checked the dressing qualifies, and so does she charted it at noon. A clause of that kind is what the word sentence means, and a piece of writing with two of them unjoined is where a run-on lives.
A finite verb is the test. It has a subject and a tense; running does not, she ran does. A dependent clause can carry a finite verb and still fail: a subordinating word — because, although, when, if, while, since, unless, after, before — puts it in the reader's debt, so because the dressing was loose has a subject, a verb and no completion. A relative clause (which was loose) is dependent for a different reason: it attaches to a noun in another clause and needs that clause to exist.
The practical use is diagnostic. Count the independent clauses in a sentence the choices offer. Two, joined by nothing but a comma, is a splice; two joined with a semicolon, a period, or a comma and a coordinating conjunction is fine.
Taught in
Related terms
- dependent clause — A dependent clause has a subject and a verb but opens with a word that leaves it unfinished, so it cannot stand alone as a sentence.
- comma splice — A comma splice joins two independent clauses with only a comma; a comma is not strong enough to hold two sentences together, so one of four repairs is needed.
- clause — A clause is a group of words with its own subject and verb; an independent clause can stand as a sentence, a dependent one cannot.
Source: The grammar guide in this course, whose conventions follow the US Government Publishing Office's Style Manual for standard written American English, with standard grammar references for agreement, case, tense and sentence structure. The GPO manual is US federal government material, not subject to copyright in the United States. Every definition and example above was written for this course; no reference text is reproduced. (GPO Style Manual accessed 2026-10-27; definitions written 2026-10-27)