Differenze e definizioni, con esempi di: sentence, phrase, clause; register, style and genre

Understanding Clauses and Phrases

In the above simple sentence, "boy" is the subject and "playing" is the verb, so the part "boy is playing" is a clause because it has both a subject and a verb.

A clause might also contain an object along with the subject, which makes it standalone as a complete sentence. One of the easiest ways to distinguish between a clause and a phrase is that a clause is a set of words that makes complete sense and does not require any additional helping words to complete it.

For example, "Sara smiled." consists of a subject and a verb, thus it is a clause.

A single sentence might have one clause, like in the above examples, but there can exist a sentence which contains more than one clause in it.

For example, "I looked everywhere but the cat was gone." contains two clauses: "I looked everywhere" and "the cat was gone". In the same manner, longer and more complicated sentences might contain multiple clauses.

also contain more than two clauses.

A phrase is a group of words in a sentence that does NOT contain a subject and a verb.

In other words, in a sentence, one part with subject and verb is a clause while the rest of it without those two parts of speeches is a phrase.

Example: On the wall, in the water, over the horizon.

All of the above examples are parts of different sentences which are void of a subject and verb thus they are classified as phrases.

A clause and a phrase may co-exist in a sentence. For example; He is playing in the field.

He is playing is a clause (subject+verb) and in the field is a phrase.

Another easy way of remembering the difference between a phrase and a clause is that a phrase does not make complete sense on its own and requires the help of other words to make it a complete sentence.

Take the above example, if you find in the field written somewhere alone, you will be very confused about its meaning and will be unable to understand it. Thus, a phrase is a set of words.

That does not make up a complete and understandable sentence by itself. What is a phrase? Words can be grouped together, but without a subject or a verb. This is called a phrase. Because a phrase has neither subject nor verb, it can't form a predicate. This is a structure that must contain a verb, and it tells you something about what the subject is doing.

Phrases can be very short – or quite long. Two examples of phrases are: "After dinner" and "Waiting for the rain to stop". Phrases can't be used alone, but you can use them as part of a sentence, where they are used as parts of speech.

What is a clause? Clauses are groups of words that have both subjects and predicates. Unlike phrases, a clause can sometimes act as a sentence – this type of clause is called an independent clause. This isn't always the case, and some clauses can't be used on their own – these are called subordinate clauses, and need to be used with an

An example of a subordinate clause is “the dog barked at him”

An example of an independent clause is “When the man broke into the house”

While the independent clause could be used by itself as a complete sentence, the subordinate clause could not. For it to be correct, it would need to be paired with another clause: “When the man broke into the house, the dog barked at him.”

A complete sentence has a subject and predicate, and can often be composed of more than one clause. As long as it has a subject and a predicate, a group of words can form a sentence, no matter how short. “You ate fish.”

More complex sentences can combine multiple clauses or phrases to add additional information about what is described. Clauses may be combined using conjunctions – such as “and”, “but” and “or”. “He went out to dinner but didn’t enjoy the meal.”

.”he went out to dinner”This example is composed of two independent clauses, “ and“he didn’t enjoy the meal”, combined with a conjunction- “but”.

REGISTER, STYLE AND GENRE-
REGISTER= linguistic variety, regarded as appropriate to use in a particular speech situation. In register perspective core of linguistic features (like pronouns and verbs) are functional, and so particular features are used in association with the communicative purposes and situational context of texts.

Legal language is an example of a register normally only used in the field of law and justice. The choice of register in different types of speech situations is termed ‘’situational variation’’.

STYLE= consists of totality of choices used in composing a text (written or spoken). It’s less predictable and more dependent on personal preferences than register. Style is similar to the register perspective in its linguistic focus but the key difference

From the register perspective is that the use of linguistic features is not functionally motivated by the situational context; rather, style features reflect aesthetic preferences, associated with particular authors or historical periods.