ShmoopTube

00:04

Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by dependent clauses. They're way needier

00:09

than the independent ones.

00:12

How should you change the highlighted portion below, if at all?

00:16

Most public universities offer many majors in engineering. Such as electrical, chemical,

00:24

and industrial engineering.

00:31

Some clauses are just way too dependent.

00:34

Unlike their independent cousins, they can't stand on their own as a complete sentence.

00:38

Sometimes this is because they don't have the basics of what makes a sentence complete,

00:43

i.e. at least one noun and one verb that work as a subject and predicate.

00:48

"Bill pukes," for example, is a very short, but totally independent, clause.

00:55

We've got the noun, "Bill," which works as the subject, and we've got the verb,

01:01

"pukes," which works as the predicate.

01:04

If someone tries to shove dependent clauses out the door on their own, they become what

01:08

are known as "fragments."

01:09

To help dependent clauses avoid this cruel fate, we have to make sure they stay attached

01:14

to a full sentence.

01:16

As one might suspect, since we spent so much time talking about this, the sentences in

01:20

question here have an example of a dependent clause turned fragment.

01:24

"Such as electrical, chemical, and industrial engineering," has no subject and no predicate.

01:31

It's a bunch of nouns, but no verbs telling us what they're doing, making the clause

01:35

totally dependent.

01:36

Therefore, we know the period that separates the clause from the preceding sentence is

01:40

guilty of turning it into a fragment.

01:42

So, we can kick off our elimination process by scratching out choice (A), which claims

01:47

that the original sentences are correct.

01:49

(C) is super wonky, so it has to go as well. It places a period right smack dab in the

01:55

middle of "such" and "as," which doesn't make any sense at all.

01:59

These are two words that in general just don't like to be separated.

02:04

In this case, "such as" is actually functioning as a relative pronoun, which is a type of

02:09

pronoun that introduces a relative clause.

02:13

And what is a relative clause? It's a clause that modifies a word, phrase, or idea in the

02:17

main clause.

02:18

So, in our sample sentence, "such as electrical, chemical, and industrial engineering" modifies

02:24

"majors in engineering" by specifying the kinds of majors we're talking about

02:29

here.

02:30

Since relative clauses are always busy modifying something in the main clause, they're always

02:34

dependent on them.

02:36

If one of them is ever separated from the thing it's modifying, it's doomed to be

02:39

a fragment.

02:40

Choice (B) is a little bit better than (A) and (C), because it's not trying to turn

02:45

our dependent relative clause into a fragment by using a period.

02:50

However, like we said before, "such" and "as" are two words that usually hate to

02:54

be separated, even if it's with a comma. We've now narrowed our choices down to (D),

02:59

which correctly keeps the relative dependent clause connected to the main clause with a

03:02

comma, without splitting apart "such" and "as."

03:06

These dependent clauses may be needy, but they're nothing compared

03:28

to the codependent ones...

Full Transcript