MGH Workbook  Ex. 4-8 page 129 

Identifying Independent and Dependent Clauses 

Some of the sentences in this exercise do not have dependent clauses but do have participial phrases. Remember the difference between a clause and a phrase:  a clause contains a subject and verb; a phrase is a group of words that does not have the subject/verb pattern. Dependent clauses and phrases work as modifiers in sentences. 

  1. Independent clause: two French pilots are still the subject of a search.
    Dependent clause: Although they were reported missing in 1927
  1. Independent clause: Charles Nungesser and Francois Coli took off two weeks before Lindbergh.
    Dependent clause: none
    Participial phrase: Hoping to be the first to travel nonstop between New York and Paris
  1. Independent clause: reporters flashed the story all over the world.
    Dependent clause: As they watched the takeoff
  1. Independent clause: Nungesser and Coli were sighted by ships in the Atlantic
    Dependent clause: none
    Participial phrase: Heading west from Paris
  2. Independent clause: it should have been easy to spot
    Dependent clause: Because the large plane was white
  1. Independent clause: people claimed to have seen the plane, called the White Bird, over Canada and Boston
    Dependent clause: As the hours crept by
  1. Independent clause: Crowds gathered in New York
    Dependent clause: None
    Participial phrase: hoping to greet the heroic flyers.
  1. Independent clause: Nungesser and Coli were declared lost.
    Dependent clause: When the White Bird failed to appear
  2. Independent clause: most people believed 
    Dependent clause: that Nungesser and Coli crashed in the sea
    Dependent clause: After an exhaustive search was abandoned
  1. Independent clause: In the 1990s a researcher claimed to have found some old-fashioned aircraft parts in a remote part of the Maine woods
    Dependent clause: which he feels came from the long lost White Bird.

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