Is It a Phrase or a Clause? It Matters

What's Wrong with This Statement? Reading Is It a Phrase or a Clause? It Matters 1 minute Next More on Quotes

A dependent clause has a subject and a verb; a phrase does not.

...after lunch (phrase)
...after we ate lunch (clause)

...since Friday (phrase)
...since I left Friday (clause)

...before the session (phrase)
...before the session ended (clause)

The difference matters. For example, at the beginning of a sentence, the phrases above do NOT take a comma; the clauses do.

...After lunch we got down to the business at hand.
...After we ate lunch, we got down to the business at hand.

Happy punctuating!

Margie