Dependent Clauses

Dependent Clauses
Temporal Clauses
Relative Clauses
Relative Pronoun and Antecedents
Finding the Antecedent

Dependent Clauses

Dependent clauses (or subordinate clauses) are parts of sentences that contain their own internal logic (e.g., they have a conjugated verb with a subject), but they cannot stand on their own due to a conjunction or pronoun that begins the clause that makes the idea incomplete without the context of a main clause. Here’s an example:

When the sun set, we ate dinner.

The dependent clause in this sentence, “when the sun set”, begins with a subordinating conjunction, “when”, and has its own internal logic: a conjugated verb “set” with the subject “the sun.” However, if the full sentence consisted simply of:

When the sun set.

we would be left wondering, what happened when the sun set? The idea is incomplete, and we need the context of the main or independent clause, “we ate dinner”, to form a full sentence. The dependent clause answers a question posed by the main clause or some element of the main clause, like “when did it happen?” or “which noun are we talking about?”

This unit will discuss two specific kinds of subordinate / dependent clauses in Greek: a temporal clause indicates when the action of a main verb occurs, and the relative clause functions adjectivally to give us more information about a noun, answering the question “which noun specifically are we discussing?”

Temporal Clauses

A temporal clause, from the Latin tempus, “time”, indicates when the action of the main verb occurs in a circumstantial fashion. For example, in the sentence above, the temporal clause “when the sun set” answers the question, “when did we eat dinner?” We know that it’s a temporal clause due to the meaning of the subordinating conjunction that introduces the clause, “when”, and we can mark the beginning of the temporal clause at the conjunction.

In Greek, the subordinating conjunction ἐπεί or ἐπειδή, “after, when, since”, introduces a temporal clause. When we see multiple conjugated verbs in a sentence, we have to ask how they are related and connected (i.e., what kinds of conjunctions are used?). When those connectors are coordinating (like καί or ἀλλά) or correlative (like καί/τε … καί/τε), then the verbs and clauses thus connected are main clauses and on the same level. When the connector is subordinating, however, like ἐπεί, we must realize that we are dealing with a subordinate clause or dependent clause that exists to give context to the main clause; the subordinate clause can’t stand by itself.

Thus, take a look at the following Greek example:

ὁ παῖς τοὺς ἵππους ἀπὸ τῆς ὁδοῦ ἀφῆκεν ἐπεί αὐτοὺς ἔβλεψεν.

In this sentence, there are two conjugated verbs: ἀφῆκεν and ἔβλεψεν. When we look before each verb, the only conjunction that we see in the sentence is ἐπεί, which will govern whatever verb comes after it (and whatever else attends that verb). When we note that our sentence contains a dependent clause, we have to understand where the dependent clause begins and ends. We have to understand what belongs to the dependent clause and what belongs to the main clause so that we don’t, e.g., pull the main verb into the dependent clause or attribute an adjective of the dependent clause to a noun of the main clause.

In general, a dependent clause:

begins at a subordinating conjunction or subordinating pronoun
and ends at 1) the first conjugated verb you find after the conjunction or pronoun, 2) a punctuation mark like a comma or period, or 3) the end of the sense unit (e.g., a prepositional phrase or an adverb, sometimes a direct object or subject).

With these criteria in mind, we can mark the beginning and end of our temporal clause with brackets as follows:

ὁ παῖς τοὺς ἵππους ἀπὸ τῆς ὁδοῦ ἀφῆκεν [ἐπεί αὐτοὺς ἔβλεψεν].

Thus, we can see where the temporal clause begins and ends and work with the main clause and the dependent clause separately. In the main clause (outside of the brackets), we have a structure with an aorist active verb: “The boy sent the horses away from the road.” The ἐπεί clause, then, adds some more information and answers a question posed by the main clause: when did the boy perform that action? He sent the horses away when he saw them (αὐτούς takes τοὺς ἵππους as its antecedent, since both are masculine plural).

Relative Clauses

A relative clause is a dependent clause that modifies a noun, much like an adjective. A dependent clause is usually introduced by a subordinating conjunction or a pronoun that can begin a clause that contains its own conjugated verb; in this case, a relative clause begins with a relative pronoun: ὅς, ἥ, ὅ - “who(m)”, “which”, or “that”. Note the following example in English:

The book which is on the table is large.

The relative clause in this sentence begins with the relative pronoun “which” and continues with the remainder of the clause: the conjugated verb “is” and the prepositional phrase “on the table.” The relative clause serves to tell us more about a noun, in this case “the book,” and the relative clause helps us understand which book in particular we’re talking about: the book which is on the table, as opposed to the book which is on the shelf or the book that is blue. This noun gets replaced in the relative clause with the relative pronoun. This noun is termed an antecedent, which, as you will recall from the unit on pronouns, will give the pronoun its gender and number; the case of the pronoun, however, comes from its use within its own clause. More on this below.

Relative Pronoun and Antecedents

The relative pronoun, like any other pronoun, can exist in any combination of gender, case, and number, since it needs to be able to replace any kind of noun. Its declension mostly looks similar to the endings of 2-1-2 adjectives with rough breathings.

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nom. Sg.	ὅς	ἥ	ὅ
Gen. Sg.	οὗ	ἧς	οὗ
Dat. Sg.	ᾧ	ᾗ	ᾧ
Acc. Sg.	ὅν	ἥν	ὅ
Nom. Pl.	οἵ	αἵ	ἅ
Gen. Pl.	ὧν	ὧν	ὧν
Dat. Pl.	οἷς	αἷς	οἷς
Acc. Pl.	οὕς	ἅς	ἅ

Be aware that for four of these forms, you need to be careful about accents. The presence or absence of an accent makes the difference between a relative pronoun and a definite article:

ὁ (no accent) = definite article, masculine nominative singular
- ὅ (acute accent) = relative pronoun, neuter nominative or accusative singular
ἡ (no accent) = definite article, feminine nominative singular
- ἥ (acute accent) = relative pronoun, feminine nominative singular
οἱ (no accent) = definite article, masculine nominative plural
- οἵ (acute accent) = relative pronoun, masculine nominative plural
αἱ (no accent) = definite article, feminine nominative plural
- αἵ (acute accent) = relative pronoun, feminine nominative plural

Again, the relative pronoun functions like any other pronoun in taking its gender and number from its antecedent. Its case, however, is determined by its function within the relative clause. For example, if the “who” is performing the action of the verb within the relative clause as the subject, then it should be in the nominative case. If it receives the action of an active/middle verb within the relative clause, then it should be in the accusative case. And so on and so forth. Here’s another way to phrase it:

The relative pronoun takes its case from its place within its own space.

This means that, e.g., while an antecedent can be a nominative subject in the main clause, if the relative pronoun functions as a direct object within the relative clause, it has to be in the accusative case.

Finding the Antecedent

Let’s see how a relative clause works within the context of a Greek sentence by using the following example:

οἱ μαθηταὶ οὓς ὁ διδάσκαλος διδάσκει τὰ βιβλία ἤνεγκον.
- The students whom the teacher teaches brought the books.

When we come across a relative pronoun, that serves as a signal that there is a relative clause present in the sentence. The first step in deciphering the sentence should always be to isolate the relative clause from the main clause. We have to understand what belongs to the relative clause and what belongs to the main clause so that we don’t, e.g., pull the main verb into the relative clause or attribute an adjective of the relative clause to a noun of the main clause.

To reframe the steps mentioned above for isolating a dependent clause from a main clause, a relative clause:

begins at the relative pronoun
and ends at 1) the conjugated verb, 2) a punctuation mark like a comma, or 3) the end of the sense unit (e.g., a prepositional phrase or an adverb, sometimes a direct object or subject).

A good practice is to use marks like parentheses or square brackets to sequester the relative clause; that way, you can see at a glance what elements belong to each clause and figure out the logic of each clause before putting them together.

οἱ μαθηταὶ [οὓς ὁ διδάσκαλος διδάσκει] τὰ βιβλία ἤνεγκον.

Once you’ve determined the boundaries of the relative clause, the best pratice is then to figure out the main clause first. Dependent clauses always add information to the main clause, and in order to determine the dependent clause’s relationship to the main clause, we have to understand the main clause first. In the sentence above, the main clause is: οἱ μαθηταὶ τὰ βιβλία ἤνεγκον, “The students brought the books.”

The relative clause, then, adds more information to the main clause by modifying a noun. To figure out which noun is being modified by the relative clause, we have to look at the gender and number of the relative pronoun and find a noun in the main clause that matches in both aspects. Because οὓς is masculine accusative plural, we need to find a masculine plural noun to serve as the antecedent of οὓς; μαθηταὶ is the only noun in the main clause that fits the bill. Note that the relative clause cannot possibly modify “the books” (τὰ βιβλία), since that noun is neuter accusative plural. The mismatch in genders between οὓς (masculine) and βιβλία (neuter) means that it is not the books that the teacher teaches; it’s the students.

This act of matching the gender and number of the relative pronoun and its antecedent is important because the relative clause does not necessarily need to follow its antecedent immediately, the way that it does in English. Note the following example:

ἡ ἵππος ὑπὸ τοῦ πολίτου ἀπὸ τῆς ὁδοῦ ἤχθη ὃς τὰ ποιήματα ἔγραψεν.

Our relative clause comes at the end of the sentence: ὃς τὰ ποιήματα ἔγραψεν. However, immediately preceding it is the verb of the main clause: ἤχθη. So, we need to use the gender and number of the relative pronoun ὅς (masculine singular) to figure out which noun the relative clause modifies.

There are three nouns in the main clause: ἵππος, πολίτου, and ὅδου. Of these three, we can immediately rule out ὁδοῦ, which is feminine singular. This leaves us with ἵππος, which can be either masculine or feminine, and πολίτου, which is only ever masculine. Here, we need the help of the nouns’ articles to disambiguate: note how ἵππος is preceded by the feminine nominative singular article ἡ, which makes it feminine. Thus, the relative clause has to modify πολίτου.

To make this clear in translation, we need to rearrange the parts of the Greek sentence to conform to English word order, which places the relative clause after its antecedent. So:

The horse was led away from the road by the citizen who wrote the poems.

Note that any other arrangement of the translation would indicate something different and not render the Greek faithfully. For example, “The horse was led away by the citizen from the road who wrote the poems” implies that it’s the road that wrote the poems (which is wrong).

Dependent Clauses

Table of contents