Can an independent clause have an implied (or null) subject?
I'm trying to determine whether a clause with an implied subject can be considered independent - specifically in the case of compound sentences.
For example: "I was tired, but went to the party anyway."
To my thinking, the second clause is an independent clause because the reiterated "I" is implied, but I can't find much to back this up. Thoughts?
Bill J puts it clearly (I admit I've tidied a bit):
‘They have appeared on message boards and in blogs, and have been spread by word of mouth’.
...
Concerning your question about the conjoining of clauses: although ... the second clause above may seem dependent because it appears to have no subject, that’s not actually the case. ‘They’ is the subject of both clauses, but it is left out of the second clause because it would otherwise repeat what has been said in the first clause. This process is called ellipsis. [Both] the clauses [here] are independent. Bill J
As usual, accepted terminology can hide some of the facts. You'd never say 'I went to the party anyway' without previous context showing that this was a rather unexpected course of action. 'I went to the party', yes. So 'independent' is perhaps a not totally accurate label here. However, it's the accepted one, and addresses the syntactic structure rather than the semantics involved.
I'm trying to determine whether a clause with an implied subject can be considered independent - specifically in the case of compound sentences.
For example:
- "I was tired, but went to the party anyway."
To my thinking, the second clause is an independent clause because the reiterated "I" is implied, but I can't find much to back this up. Thoughts?
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Your example sentence is not a compound sentence, nor is the 2nd clause an independent clause.
A compound sentence consists of two or more independent clauses. Your example only has one independent clause. Your example has a compound verb phrase or it can be seen as a coordination of verb phrases. The two verb phrases are: "was tired", "went to the party anyway".
An independent clause can stand on its own as an independent sentence. Your expression "but went to the party anyway" cannot do that. (Well, not without surrounding context being understood and the use of ellipsis.)
EDITED: Here are examples of compound sentences with two independent clauses:
"I was tired, but I went to the party anyway."
"Get off the grass and go home!"