My explanation comes from my teacher's edition from which I teach 4th grade Language Arts and from my own knowledge as an English teacher. Hopefully it is broken down simply and to the point.
A complex sentence contains two related ideas joined by a conjunction other than "and", "but", or "or". You can combine two short sentences to form a complex sentence.
Examples:
Joe is busy. He has a job.
Joe is busy because he has a job.
Joe starts work. The sun rises.
Joe starts work when the sun rises.
Conjunctions that can be used:
when, as, as if, although, before, because, as though, if, after, since, where, though, while, until, wherever, unless
These are just a few examples.
A simple sentence has a subject, verb, and one complete thought. There are no conjunctions in a simple sentence. You might have a comma in a simple sentence, but a comma does not denote a compound or complex sentence. The conjunction is the key to recognizing a complex sentence. From there, you can find the independent and dependent clauses. Think about what the words independent and dependent mean. One clause is dependent on the other clause. That would be the dependent clause. The other clause can stand by itself. That would be the independent clause.
From there you can determine if the sentence if complex or not by using the tools I first explained above.
No comments:
Post a Comment