Advanced Grammar: Clauses & Tenses
Sentence structure and tense control at examination level.
Clauses build sentences
A clause contains a subject and a finite verb.
- Main (independent): makes complete sense alone.
- Subordinate (dependent): cannot stand alone.
A phrase has no finite verb: in the morning, having finished the work.
Why this matters for marks: punctuation rules depend entirely on knowing which you have. A subordinate clause written as a sentence is a fragment, and it is penalised.
Types of subordinate clause
- Noun clause: does the job of a noun. I know what you did.
- Adjective (relative) clause: describes a noun. The book that I borrowed was excellent.
- Adverb clause: describes the verb, giving time, reason, condition or contrast. Although it rained, we continued.
The test: replace the clause with a single word. If a noun fits, it is a noun clause; if an adjective fits, adjective; if an adverb fits, adverb.
Defining and non-defining relative clauses
Two commas change the meaning of a sentence completely, the clearest case in English of punctuation carrying information.
Defining: identifies which one. No commas.
The students who studied hard passed.(only those students passed)
Non-defining: adds extra information about an already-identified subject. Commas.
The students, who studied hard, passed.(they all studied hard, and they all passed)
The rule: if removing the clause changes who you are talking about, it is defining and takes no commas.
Also: that is used only in defining clauses; which can be used in both.
Fixing a comma splice four ways
❌ The results were announced, everyone celebrated.
Two main clauses joined by a comma alone, a comma splice, and one of the most heavily penalised errors.
Four fixes, each with a different effect:
- Full stop, The results were announced. Everyone celebrated. Blunt, clear.
- Coordinating conjunction: …announced, and everyone celebrated. Simple link.
- Semicolon: …announced; everyone celebrated. Signals close connection.
- Subordination: When the results were announced, everyone celebrated. Most sophisticated, because it states the relationship.
The diagnostic test: could both sides stand alone as sentences? If yes, a comma is insufficient.
The twelve tenses
Three times × four aspects. Seeing it as a grid rather than a list makes it manageable.
SIMPLE CONTINUOUSpast wrote was writing
present writes is writing
future will write will be writing PERFECT PERFECT CONT.
past had written had been writing
present has written has been writing
future will have written will have been writing
Choosing between similar tenses
Marks are lost on choice far more than on formation.
Past simple vs present perfect. The past simple needs a finished time; the present perfect connects to now.
I visited Lahore in 2019. ✅I have visited Lahore in 2019. ✗
Past perfect shows which of two past events happened first.
By the time we arrived, the train had left.Without it, the sequence is ambiguous.
Present perfect continuous emphasises duration of something still relevant.
She has been studying for three hours.The most damaging error in real writing is not the wrong tense but an unexplained switch mid-paragraph. Narratives stay past; descriptions stay present.
Subject-verb agreement traps
The method: cross out everything between the subject and the verb, then check.
The box of chocolates is on the table. ✅The subject is box; "of chocolates" is a prepositional phrase and cannot be the subject.
The cases that catch almost everyone:
- Either/neither… or/nor, agree with the nearer subject. Neither the teacher nor the students were ready.
- Each, every, everyone, nobody, none: always singular.
- Collective nouns: singular when acting as one unit.
- "There is/are": agrees with what follows.
- Titles and quantities: Ten kilometres is a long way.
Why this earns marks
Accuracy is separately assessed in every written paper. Content and expression both carry marks, and agreement and tense errors are among the easiest to eliminate.
Varied sentence structure raises the expression band. A script of uniformly simple sentences is capped, however good the ideas.
Subordination shows reasoning. "It rained. The match stopped." states two facts; "The match stopped because it rained" states a relationship, which is what analytical writing requires.
The most efficient revision habit: in your last five minutes, check every verb against its subject with the intervening words mentally deleted. It is fast and it recovers marks.
Where marks are lost
- Comma splices.
- Sentence fragments: a subordinate clause alone.
- Commas around a defining relative clause.
- Present perfect with a finished time.
- Agreeing with the nearest noun instead of the subject.
- Unexplained tense switching.
What to remember
- Main stands alone; subordinate does not, punctuation follows from this.
- Defining takes no commas; non-defining does.
- Finished time → past simple, not present perfect.
- Delete the words between subject and verb, then check agreement.
Watch one worked through
Here is one done slowly, with the reason for every move. Then one for you.
Correct this sentence and name the error: "By the time we arrived, the match already started."
- Put the two events on a timeline.match starts ──→ we arrive ──→ nowTense questions become easy once the order of events is drawn. Do this before touching the verbs.
- Both are in the past, but one happened before the other.earlier past: the match starting later past: our arrivalWhen two past events need separating, English marks the earlier one differently. Simple past for both loses that information.
- The earlier event takes the past perfect.had + past participle → had already startedPast perfect exists precisely to show the past of the past. That is its whole job.
- Write the corrected sentence.By the time we arrived, the match had already started.The later event stays in the simple past. Only the earlier one changes, and putting both in past perfect is overcorrecting.
Answer: By the time we arrived, the match had already started. The error was using the simple past for the earlier event instead of the past perfect.
Complete: "She ___ already left when I phoned." One word.
Show the answer
had
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