Gateway to Grammar: Main clauses and Subordinate clauses

If you ever struggle to work out what a ‘main clause’ and a ‘subordinate clause’ (subclause) are, I’ll give you some easy tips to identify them.

Think of the main clause as the most important bit of information. In the pictured example, “Gary dared Max to say it again” is the main clause. Without this part of the sentence, it makes absolutely no sense. “The 60-foot pigeon” on it’s own isn’t a full sentence. It is a bit of information floating around in space. This makes “the 60-foot pigeon” the subordinate clause. Subordinate means less important, so this should help you to remember.

Other examples of main clauses and subordinate clauses:

• Max hid under a sturdy table (main clause) after he was threatened by the giant pigeon (subclause).

• Although he was quite angry (subclause), Gary did enjoy watching Max run away in terror (main clause)

In the examples above “after” and “although” are used as connectors to combine the two clauses into one sentence.

There are also ‘embedded’ subclauses. In the pictured example “the 60-foot pigeon” is embedded (stuffed into the middle of) the main clause “Gary dared Max to say it again”. Embedded clauses are always subclauses.

So, you can wave that piece of grammatical knowledge around at your next cocktail party! Don’t blame me if the only friend you make is a 60-foot pigeon with anger problems.