Introducing English Linguistics

Clauses, sentences, and clause functions
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INTRODUCING ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

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questioned the child, the direct object – the child – becomes subject of a cor-
responding sentence in the passive voice: The child was questioned by the
police officer.
To define clause functions as well as the form of the clauses and sen-
tences in which they occur, this section begins with a discussion of the
difference between main and subordinate clauses, describes how such
clauses can be coordinated, and then defines the various clause functions
as they occur in the four main types of sentences in English: declarative,
interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory.