A small clause lacks a verb or includes a tenseless verb and functions as a subordinate clause. It is part of a sentence and often relies on another section for full meaning. Multiple clauses can be connected with conjunctions.
A small clause is part of a sentence that often has a subject and a predicate, but may lack a verb or include a tenseless verb. This can be seen in a sentence like “The jury found the guilty man,” such as the “guilty man” section. In this sentence, the main sentence has a subject “The jury” and a predicate that includes the verb “found” and the short sentence “the guilty man”. There is no verb in this section, although it can be considered to include an implied verb in the form of “to be” since it can be rewritten as “guilty man”.
In many ways, a small clause functions as a subordinate clause, but the lack of a verb or tense often separates it from other types. A clause is basically the main unit of a complete sentence or thought, which consists of a subject and a predicate. In a sentence like “The man threw the ball”, there is a subject of “The man” and the predicate consists of the rest of the sentence. The entire sentence is a clause, although a number of words and phrases make up the predicate and subject.
Sentences can also consist of multiple clauses, often requiring the use of conjunctions or other connectors to bring them together. A sentence can have a main and a subordinate clause, such as “The man threw the ball, which was caught by a dog.” In this sentence, the main clause is the same as in the previous example, but a subordinate clause has been added that builds on the main clause for full meaning. The subordinate clause, “that was taken by a dog,” is itself meaningless, since the subordinate conjunction “that” acts in place of the subject. In this case the subject is actually “the ball”.
A small clause is typically used in a similar way, often serving as a subordinate clause within a sentence. In the sentence “The jury found the guilty man”, there is a simple subject consisting of “The jury” and the predicate includes the verb “found”. The rest of the predicate includes the little sentence “guilty man,” which has a subject and a predicate, but no verb.
Any small clause can be thought of as a separate part of the sentence, although it often relies on another section for the full meaning. The subject of this is “man,” but the predicate has nothing beyond “guilty.” There is also an implied verb of “to be” where the small clause can be written as “The man is guilty” or the sentence rewritten as “The jury found the man guilty.” Even in the rewrite, this section remains a small clause since the verb, while no longer implied, has no tense.
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