SYNTAX: COMPOUND SENTENCES

1. A sentence may be made out of one or more clauses. Sentences made out of more than one clause are called compound.

A compound sentence requires two or more lexical predicates, but the way in which they are related makes the difference.

Compound sentences must possess one main clause and, at least, one depending clause.  The following examples refer to English, but the structure is valid for most languages worldwide

3. The difference between attached and embedded can be explained by means of the following graphics:

Embedded clause: the pending clause plays a crucial role (function) within the main clause, so that if it is left out, the main clause is no longer meaningful (*I hope means nothing)

Attached clause: in many cases, both clauses can exchange their positions. The main clause tends to be full-meaningful when the pending clause is left out. If you say take a drink, that clause is already a sentence, thus it has got complete meaning.

4. The main types of compound clauses, together with their main linkers, are shown in this table. Relative clauses are presented here, as well as conditional clauses.

TYPE	LINKER	ENGLISH	EXAMPLE	TRANSLATION
embedded
- completive	que	that	espero que vinguis	I hope you come
	infinitive	infinitive	espero arribar aviat	I hope to come soon
	si	if, whether	no sé si és veritat	I don’t know if it’s true
- relative	que, qui	that, which, who	la casa que venc	the house I sell
attached
- time	quan	when	quan vinguis, truca’m	when you come, ring me up
	en + infinitive	when, by	en arribar a casa, he vist en Joan	when coming home, I’ve seen John
- consequence	com que	since, given that	com que no ets raonable, no farem negocis	since you’re not reasonable, we’ll make no business
- mode	com	as	no ho ha fet com jo pensava	he hasn’t done it as I thought he would
- adversative	tot i que	although, though	tot i que no sabia anglès, va trobar feina a NY	although he didn’t know English, he found a job in NY
	malgrat (que)	despite	malgrat que sofreix una malaltia horrible, és optimista	despite suffering from a horrible illness, he’s optimistic
- cause	perquè	because	el van castigar perquè conduïa borratxo	he was punished because he was driving drunk
	per + infinitive	for	el van castigar per conduir borratxo	he was punished for driving drunk
- finality	perquè	for, so that	t’ho he dit perquè ho sàpigues	I’ve told you so that you know it / for you to know it
	per + infinitive	to, in order to	compra’t un bon llibre per llegir	buy a good book to read
	per tal de + inf.	to, in order to	es van comprar un cotxe per presumir entre els veïns	they bought a new car in order to brag about it among the neighbours