Understanding clauses

A clause is defined as consisting of a subject and a verb group. They can have other things, but at a minimum, they should have those two things.

Here is a simple sentence with the simplest possible clause structure—a subject and a verb group, nothing else:

Remember how we said earlier that one clause was 'one event'?

That means a clause can only have 1 verb group.

1 verb group = 1 event = 1 clause

So, a quick way to figure out how many clauses are in a sentence is to count the verb groups.

How many clauses in each of these sentences?

2 verb groups = 2 clauses.

Each of the sentences above has 2-5 verb groups.

That means they must, by definition, have 2-5 clauses (matching the number of verb groups).

You don't need to look at anything else in these sentences to establish that number of clauses—just find the verb groups!

Paste this snippet into the textbox below and highlight all the verb groups. How many clauses does it have?

Lyra crossed the bridge and continued on the muddy path between water meadows, and came to the canal, where a line of boats was moored, some with smoke coming out of their tin chimneys, one with a dog that barked furiously until she came closer, when it must have sensed something wrong.

Snippet source: The Secret Commonwealth by Phillip Pullman.

What about the other compulsory element: the subject.

Does the same rule apply to subjects?