How do noun clauses differ from other dependent clauses?
Other dependent clauses act as adjectives and adverbs. We can remove them and still have a complete independent clause left, with a subject and verb and any necessary complements. That is not the case with most noun clauses. A clause acting as an indirect object or an appositive may be removable, but other types of noun clauses are too essential to the sentence to be removed. Consider these examples: Whether you drive or fly is up to you. I wondered if you would like to go to the barbecue. Sandy led us to where she had last seen the canoe. If we remove these noun clauses, what is left will not make much sense: is up to you I wondered Sandy led us to That is because, in each example, the dependent noun clause forms a key part of the independent clause: it acts as the subject, the direct object, the object of a preposition. Without those key parts, the independent clauses do not express complete thoughts. A sentence containing a noun clause is thus the one case in which an “independent”
