A sentence (represented by a tectogrammatical tree) is formed by one or more clauses.
The following types of clauses are distinguished w.r.t. their in-/dependency:
independent clauses.
Independent clauses are such clauses the effective root nodes of which are not dependent on any part of any other clause.
In the tree, the effective root node(s) of the represented sentence is (are) the effective root node(s) of the independent clause(s). However, it is also possible for the effective root node of an independent clauses to be lower in the tree (which is the case with e.g. parentheses, see Section 4.3, "Connecting verbal and non-verbal clauses").
Independent clauses can be both verbal and non-verbal.
dependent clauses.
Dependent clauses are such clauses the effective root nodes of which are dependent on a part of another clause.
Dependent clauses are mainly verbal clauses. But also non-verbal clauses can be dependent clauses in certain cases (see Section 4.3, "Connecting verbal and non-verbal clauses").
The following types of clauses are distinguished according to the governing node of the clause:
verbal clauses.
Verbal clauses are such clauses the governing node (predicate) of which is a finite verb form (but also a non-finite verb form and other forms with the function of a verbal predicate; see Section 4.1, "Verbal clauses").
Verbal clauses can be dependent as well as independent.
non-verbal clauses.
Non-verbal clauses are such clauses the governing node of which is not a verb.
Non-verbal clauses are usually independent. They are only dependent in special cases (see Section 4.3, "Connecting verbal and non-verbal clauses").
The present section is devoted to the way it is determined whether a given clause is verbal (Section 4.1, "Verbal clauses") or non-verbal (Section 4.2, "Non-verbal clauses") and it describes the basic rules for connecting them by means of dependency and non-dependency relations (Section 4.3, "Connecting verbal and non-verbal clauses").