GOING DEEPER INTO ENGLISH

The relative importance of main clauses and subordinate clauses

I would like to share with Forum members and guests the following highly instructive e-mail correspondence during the last few days between me and a cardiologist in Newark, New Jersey, who teaches ESL (particularly high-school-level reading comprehension) on weekends when he’s free from hospital work. (We’ll refer to him simply as Dr. A here to protect his privacy.) The exchange followed this very intriguing question of his about the relative importance of main clauses and subordinate clauses in a complex sentence:

I answered Dr. A’s question as follows:

December 6, 2010

Dear Dr. A:

I’m afraid it’s not correct to say that in complex sentences, the main idea invariably goes to the main clause and the less important ones to the subordinate clause. Your ESL students who questioned that rule are right. There is, in fact, no such rule. This looks to me simply a misinterpretation of the basic rule that in a complex sentence, the main clause is the independent clause that can stand by itself, and the subordinate clause is the dependent clause that can’t stand by itself. This, of course, isn’t the same as saying that the most important idea should go to the main clause or will be found in it; it’s perfectly possible for the most important idea to be the subordinate clause itself or, at least, to be part of it. Indeed, the position of the idea in a complex sentence isn’t a correct yardstick of its importance in relation to the other ideas in that sentence.

This point becomes clear when we closely examine a complex sentence like this one: “Because her husband abandoned her, the stewardess decided to leave the family home.” That sentence, of course, can also be constructed this way: “The stewardess decided to leave the family home because her husband abandoned her.” Now, which is the more important idea—the one found in the subordinate clause “because her husband abandoned her” or the one found in the main clause “the stewardess decided to leave the family home”? We really can’t say; we can’t validly make a value judgment on their relative importance. All we can say is that the main clause “the stewardess decided to leave the family home” can stand by itself and that the subordinate clause “because her husband abandoned her” can’t. This is a grammatical and structural distinction that doesn’t establish the comparative importance of the ideas involved.

The point gets even clearer in the case of complex sentences with a relative modifying clause, like this one: “What we didn’t realize when we bought the property was that it was prone to heavy flooding.” This sentence, of course, can also be constructed this way: “That it was prone to heavy flooding was what we didn’t realize when we bought the property.” Either way, the idea in the main clause is “[the property] was prone to heavy flooding,” and the idea in the subordinate clause is “we didn’t realize [this] when we bought the property.” But there’s absolutely no way of figuring out which of the ideas in the two clauses is more important or less important; knock off either one and the sentence collapses into a contextless heap.

I think this demonstrates the fallacy of the idea that in complex sentences, the main idea should go to the main clause and the less important ones to the subordinate clause. On the contrary, the most important idea can be found anywhere in that sentence; indeed, in the case of complex sentences with a relative subordinate clause, that most important idea could be the whole sentence itself.

To the above explanation of mine, Dr. A made the following rejoinder:

I then elaborated on my explanation as follows:

December 8, 2010

Dear Dr. A:

Thank you for the compliment about my explanation to your question about the relative importance of ideas in main clauses and subordinate clauses. I must say that you are not alone in having been confused by this admittedly complicated aspect of English grammar and structure; I myself took years to completely understand it. I had taken it for granted that in sentences, the most important idea naturally always goes to the main clause and the less important ones to the subordinate clause. Looking back now, I think the problem is that we tend to confuse the relative importance of the main clause and the subordinate clause, on one hand, with the relative importance of the ideas they contain, on the other. These two concepts, though, are altogether different—the first is about grammar and sentence structure, and the second, about the nature of ideas and of language itself.

A further complication, of course, is the matter of subordination and word order in English, and I can see now that in my essay that you cited, this opening statement might just have contributed to your confusion: “We all know that in English, the main clause of a sentence is generally more important than a subordinate clause or phrase...” This statement is, of course, true in the sense that a main clause generally can stand by itself, while a subordinate clause can’t stand on its own and generally can be dispensed with. But as I later explained in that essay, these aspects of sentence construction are largely mechanical and structural; they don’t really measure the intrinsic importance of the ideas found in a sentence, only the emphasis given to them.

To clarify this point, let’s look even more closely at the Agence France-Presse sentence that I presented as an example in that essay: “Resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations, in what activists say is a ‘land grab’ that will worsen poverty and malnutrition.” I showed that this sentence can also be constructed in at least two other ways:

(1) “In what activists say is a ‘land grab’ that will worsen poverty and malnutrition, resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations.”

(2) “Resource-hungry nations, in what activists say is a ‘land grab’ that will worsen poverty and malnutrition, are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations.”

As we can see, the meaning of the statement largely remains the same despite the major changes in sentence structure and the vastly different positioning of the words, ideas, and clauses. Also, except for variations in the emphasis given to the ideas, there’s no evident change at all in their intrinsic importance.

This, I think, is clear proof that neither are ideas more important or less important when they are part of the main clause or subordinate clause, nor when these ideas are mentioned or positioned earlier or later in the sentence. Indeed, the true and only reliable yardstick of the relative importance of ideas is the overall semantics (meaning) and logic of the sentence. Another way of saying this is that in a sentence, the importance of ideas is determined neither by grammatical and sentence structure nor by word positioning but by what the speaker or writer intends to say and, conversely, by how the listener or reader perceives or interprets what’s being said. This, of course, goes beyond grammar and sentence structure into the dynamics of language and communication itself.

P.S. Thank you for thinking that I should be a professor in a university, and that you’d be glad to be my student. It’s a fascinating idea that flatters me immensely! Let me suggest a more immediately actionable course of action, though: suggest to your students and friends who’d like to further improve their English to check out Jose Carillo’s English Forum by simply clicking the indicated link. I’m sure that the hundreds of English grammar and lessons there can help them—and they need not go back to the classroom for the purpose!

Here’s Dr. A’s reply to my explanation above:

Here’s my reply to Dr. A’s e-mail above:

December 8, 2010

Dear Dr. A,

In general, I don’t think there’s any conflict between my view and that of Francis Fennell’s in his Collegiate English Handbook regarding the relative importance of main clauses and subordinate clauses. It’s pretty well established by definition that the main or independent clause is more important to the sentence than any or all of its subordinate or dependent clauses. As Fennell correctly says, “For one clause to be subordinate to another, it must depend on the other. So subordination means making a clause dependent and therefore of lesser importance both grammatically and logically.” I think this appreciation of the relative importance of main and subordinate clauses is indisputable.

What I’m saying is simply that your ESL students are right when they maintain that it’s incorrect to say that in complex sentences, the most important idea in a sentence invariably goes to the main clause and the less important ones go to the subordinate clause. This simply isn’t so; it’s a misinterpretation of the concept of subordination. As I said earlier, it confuses the relative grammatical and structural importance of the main clause and the subordinate clause, on one hand, with the intrinsic importance of the ideas they contain, on the other. These are, in fact, entirely two different things.

Of course, there are certain types of complex sentences that appear to strongly support the contention that a subordinate clause is “of lesser importance both grammatically and logically” than the main clause. This is usually the case with subordinate clauses introduced by a subordinating conjunction like, say, “after”: “The couple lived together for years after they met at a party.” Here the idea in the main clause “the couple lived together for years” is evidently a more important idea than “after they met at a party” in the subordinate clause. Indeed, the idea in “the couple lived together for years” arguably can stand by itself even if we drop the clause “after they met at a party” that modifies it. This is clearly the bone of contention of Fennell in his Collegiate English Handbook—even if this contention doesn’t take into account the strong semantic impact of dropping that subordinate clause, which is loss of context. (This is a point that, in my view, ultimately puts a cloud of doubt on the argument that the idea in “after they met at a party” is logically less important than the idea in “the couple lived together for years.”) 

But this bone of contention actually becomes untenable and falls apart in the case of complex sentences with a subordinate clause introduced by a relative pronoun. Consider this sentence: “The woman who killed her lover turned herself in to the police.” Here, of course, the main clause is “the woman turned herself in to the police,” and the subordinate clause is “who killed her lover.” From the grammatical and structural standpoints, it’s obvious that the main clause here is more important than the subordinate clause for the simple reason that “the woman turned herself in to the police” can stand by itself while “who killed her lover” can’t. But is the idea in the clause “the woman turned herself in to the police” intrinsically more important than the idea in the subordinate clause “who killed her lover?” I don’t think so. From both the semantic and logical standpoints, both clauses are equally important in the sense that they are both defining elements of the idea expressed in that sentence. Indeed, the complex sentence “The woman who killed her lover turned herself in to the police” simply integrates two separate sentences describing independent actions, “The woman killed her lover” and “She then turned herself in to the police.” Now who can logically say that one of these actions is a more important or less important idea than the other?

We can compare this conundrum about the relative importance of main clauses and subordinate clauses to the relative importance of people in an organization. From a hierarchical and structural standpoint, a nontechnically-trained president of a chemical manufacturing company is obviously more important and more powerful than a subordinate like, say, an experienced chemical engineer with a PhD who heads the company’s production department. But from an operational standpoint, that chemical engineer can be more important than the president and can actually wield more power in the manufacturing operation despite being subordinate to the president. (Without that president, the company probably can coast along without a serious hitch until his replacement is found; without that chemical engineer, however, the manufacturing operations probably would grind to a halt in no time at all.)

I would think that the same logic applies to the idea of the subordinate clause, “who killed her lover,” in relation to the idea in the main clause, “the woman turned herself in to the police.” The idea in the subordinate clause provides context to the sentence, while the idea in the main clause provides the framework for that sentence. The two clauses are inextricably linked by grammar, structure, and logic in such a way that one is no less important than the other.

Finally, of course, we come to this question of yours: Is another textbook needed to better explain this matter? I don’t think so. All that really needs to be done is to make a much clearer distinction between the relative importance of the main clause and the subordinate clause as grammatical elements, and between the intrinsic importance of the ideas found in them. When this distinction is recognized, you’ll find that there’s really no quarrel between my point and that of Fennell’s. The problem simply boils down to our differing points of view and the fine differences of the semantics of his and my propositions.

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*Here are the two relevant passages cited by Dr. A from Francis Fennell’s Collegiate English Handbook:

(1) “Subordination...does just what its name implies. It subordinates one clause to another. For one clause to be subordinate to another, it must depend on the other. So subordination means making a clause dependent and therefore of lesser importance both grammatically and logically.”

(2) “First, subordination enables you to make your reader aware of the relative importance pf your various ideas. Depending on the focus of a paragraph, some ideas deserve greater emphasis than others. Those of lesser importance should be made subordinate to and dependent on the main ideas as a signal to the reader of the proper weight to assign to them. If you do not subordinate, you imply that all ideas have equal importance, which in most cases is not true.”

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