• The following sections of A Comprehensive Grammar of The English Language (Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, Jan Svartik, Longman, London & New York, 1985) were consulted in preparing this entry:
The grammatical hierarchy
2.7, 42
Clause types
2.16, 53-55
Coordination and subordination
14.1, 987
Compound and complex sentences
14.2, 987-988
Functional classes of subordinate clauses
15.2, 1047-48
Simple and multiple sentences
10.1, 719-720
Syntactic functions of subordinate clauses
15.1, 1047
Finite, non-finite, and verbless clauses
14.5, 992-3
nota bene:
1. footnote [a], 10.1, page 719, explains how, as the term is used in A Comprehensive Grammar, although a “simple sentence” cannot have another clause functioning as one of its elements, it can contain another clause “functioning within a phrase.”
2. footnote [b], ibid., explains how a technically simple sentence can, non-technically, be very complicated because of the complexity of its phrases.
3. footnote [d], 14.2, page 988, explains the difference between main and independent clauses.
4. the quoted phrase is found on page 992 of A Comprehensive Grammar.