Phrases and Clauses: What's the Difference?

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

• If you had to explain the difference between phrases and clauses right now, could you?

It's not the easiest concept to explain!

Phrases are groups of words that express an idea or meaning and act as components of clauses.

Clauses are groups of words that contain a verb (but often other word parts, too) and can be independent (a complete sentence) or dependent (not a complete sentence).

Simply put, phrases and clauses are chunks of meaning used to make sentences. You will learn about several different types of each in this lesson.

Phrases

There are seven types of phrases you will work within this lesson.

• noun
• verb
• adjectival
• adverbial
• participial
• prepositional
• absolute

In a new tab, look up the definition of each of these phrases and record them in a notebook or doc file. You'll want to be able to refer back to it throughout this lesson and as you continue your studies in grammar and writing.

Clauses

There are five clause types you'll learn about in this lesson.

• independent
• dependent
• noun
• relative
• adverbial

Just like with phrases, add the definitions of these clause types to your running glossary of terms.

Think Fast!

• Of the 12 types of phrases and clauses listed above, which two can be a phrase and a clause?

• Ready to review the terms and definitions you looked up?

Select the correct phrase or clause type to match each definition.

That's a lot of phrases and clauses!

It's important to have a good foundation of understanding the terms before moving on to practicing them.

If you're ready to dig into examples of each type of phrase and clause, click through to the Got It? section!