Clause: CGEL type

A clause is the smallest unit in any language that can express a complete thought or conversational contribution.

A claim about what’s true, or a description of some situation, or a question that seeks an answer, or an instruction that could be followed, or anything of that sort.

The main clause is the one that isn’t enclosed within any larger one. Must have a tense: tense is not optional for a main clause

Classifications

Dimension	Categories	What it tells you
Subordinate-clause class	content, relative, comparative	How the subordinate clause is related to the larger construction
Clause type	declarative, interrogative, exclamative, imperative	The clause’s own internal syntactic type

I know that she left. (content clause + declarative)

I wonder whether she left. (content clause + interrogative)

I remember what a fool he was! (content clause + exclamative)

• Content clause presents content: proposition / question / exclamation

• Relative clause constructs a property via a relativised variable

• Comparative clause supplies a comparison standard via a comparative dependency

Usage as subordinates

All types can be used as subordinates within a content clause:

She left. (declarative)

Did she leave? (interrogative)

What a fool he was! (exclamative)

Same propositions can be used in a content clause as a type of subordinate clause:

I think that she left.

I wonder whether she left.

I remember what a fool he was!

By contrast: The first three are main clauses of the corresponding clause types. The subordinates are.

• Content clause = subordinate clause expressing content

• Declarative/interrogative/exclamative: clause types that can occur in main or subordinate clauses

Note

The classification is empirical fact about English grammar, not a logical necessity.

We know the classifications of relative/comparative are not additive (no “relative declerative”) because English does not provide an independent declarative/interrogative/exclamative paradigm within relative or comparative clauses.

Who left? (value of who is sought,interrogative)

The woman who left (value of who is supplied by the woman, relative)

There is therefore no additional interrogative/declarative choice left to make inside the relative construction.

Declarative

• Almost always: Subject before noun, event the auxiliary.

• Exception: negative modifier (Never had they …)

• Negative, with negative auxiliary verb or auxiliary verb followed by not

• Can also convey question or command

  You will go to the room right now

  That was all you did?

Interrogative

• Closed questions - always have an auxiliary verb before the subject

Will they be careful

• Open questions - wh words.

Imperative

• Directive meaning (orders, requests)

• Plain form verb: Come, Sleep, Help

• Usually no overt subject (understood you)

• If subject appears → addressee: Everybody come down

• Typically not embeddable as complement

Sleep well

Help yourself

Everybody come down

When joined, imperative may not be understood as a directive:

Get it wrong, and they fail you (= If you get it wrong…, conditional-like use)

Actually means: If you get it wrong, they’ll 

Exclamative

A clause type expressing strong emotion, typically introduced by what or how and involving subject–aux inversion absence.

• Only type of clause that can lack NP before the verb

• Can’t be embedded as a complement

• Verb in plain form, uninflected

• If subject appears, it refers to the addressed

What a beautiful day it is!

How quickly she solved the problem!

• “What” or “How”, but ends with exclamation:

How grand it must be, to be the Chosen one

Note

modern English may use pure interrogative form with “!”:

Did we have a blast!

How cool is that! (not how cool that is)

Tensed subordinate clauses:

• Content clause

• Comparative clause

• Relative clause

Finiteness

The declarative / interrogative / exclamative clause-type classification applies essentially to finite clauses. The main exception is the to-infinitival interrogative:

Clause form	Declarative	Interrogative	Exclamative
Finite	I think that she left.	I wonder whether she left.	I remember what a fool he was!
To-infinitival	—	I don’t know what to do.	—
Bare infinitival	—	—	—
Gerund-participial	—	—	—
Past-participial	—	—	—
Verbless	—	—	—

Relative and comparative can be finite/non-finite

Clause class	Finite	Non-finite
Relative	the book that she wrote	the first person to arrive
Comparative	She is taller than I am	It is better to leave than to stay

Note

In CGEL finite is tensed, or subjunctive, or imperative

Summary

Clause Type	Key Formal Marker	Structural Example
Declarative	Subject before verb	You are ready.
Interrogative	Subject–auxiliary inversion / wh-word	Are you ready? / Who is ready?
Exclamative	What/How + no inversion	How ready you are!
Imperative	Base verb / no overt subject	Be ready.