The Hindu Business Line : Do not extort thy reasons from this clause

DECEMBER 31 is only a day away, and stock exchanges have insisted that companies have to comply with Clause 49 of the Listing Agreement and appoint independent directors. The Finance Ministry is also not in favour of extending the deadline for the compliance of that clause.

Clause is "a particular and separate article, stipulation, or proviso in a treaty, bill, or contract," explains Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Clause is "a particular disposition which makes part of a treaty; of an act of the legislature; of a deed, written agreement, or other written contract or will," defines www.lectlaw.com.

"When a clause is obscurely written, it ought to be construed in such a way as to agree with what precedes and what follows, if possible," notes the site. "The principle inherent in the clause that prohibits pointless infliction of excessive punishment when less severe punishment can adequately achieve the same purposes invalidates the punishment," advises William J. Brennan, in a quote on www.brainyquote.com.

Clause, according to www.insweb.com is "a section of a policy contract or endorsement dealing with a particular subject." For instance, a `subrogation clause' deals with the rights of the insurer in the event of payment of a loss under the contract, explains InsWeb. "I always make sure I have an escape clause that allows me to pull my name off a project if I have to abandon it," insists Lynn Abbey. "If Moses had gone to Harvard Law School and spent three years working on the Hill, he would have written the Ten Commandments with three exceptions and a saving clause," hypothesises Charles Morgan.

Clause also means a unit of grammatical organisation next below the sentences in rank. "A group of words containing a subject and predicate and functioning as a member of a complex or compound sentence," states Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. It also traces the word's etymology as, "Middle English, from Old French, from Medieval Latin clausa close of a rhetorical period, from Latin, feminine of clausus, past participle of claudere to close."

Online Etymology Dictionary elaborates, "1225... Latin clausula `a closing, termination,' in legal sense, `end of a sentence or a legal argument,' ... Sense of `ending' gradually faded." The word `close' is about two decades older, and is again from claudere; the dictionary tentatively tracks `close' to Proto-Indo-European klau, meaning `hook, crooked or forked branch,' (possibly because these were used as `a bar or bolt in primitive structures').

The Latin root claudere finds mention in many words such as: claustrophobia, closure, exclude, conclude, cloister, include, preclude, seclude, occlude, recluse, rostrum, closet, slot, and clitoris. "Close call is 1881; close shave is 1834; close quarters is 1753, originally nautical. Close-up in photography is from 1913," informs www.etymonline.com.

"Clauses should not be confused with phrases, which do not express complete thoughts through combinations of subjects and predicates," stipulates Wikipedia. Phrases usually don't contain verbs except as verbals (gerunds, participles, and infinitives), it explains, and provides a simple example: "I didn't know that the dog ran through the yard." Please note that `through the yard' is a phrase, not a clause, because it has no subject or verb. "The dog ran through the yard is a clause; it is a whole sentence contained within a larger sentence," adds http://en.wikipedia.org.

In `I can't cook very well but I make quite good omelettes,' two main/ independent clauses that are of equal importance and could each exist as a separate sentence are joined by `but', explains http://dictionary.cambridge.org. "I'll get you some stamps if I go to town," is a sentence with a subordinate/ dependent clause, `if I go to town,' which can't exist as a separate sentence. Another example, to reflect the mood of India Inc is, "We'll comply with Clause 49 if we get good independent directors." Wonder if such a choice exists!

There is also `concessive clause'; it often begins with `though' or `although', and expresses an idea that suggests the opposite of the main part of the sentence, says The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Language. For example, "Though there are independent directors on the board, everybody nods obediently." Relatives can't normally be `independent'; so too, relative clause can't exist independently, because it describes a noun that comes before it in the main part of the sentence. Such as, `whom I met' in `the director whom I met is a relative of the chairman.'

Robertson Davies is of the view that the average politician goes through a sentence "like a man exploring a disused mine shaft-blind, groping, timorous and in imminent danger of cracking his shins on a subordinate clause or a nasty bit of subjunctive." The most emphatic place in a clause or sentence is the end, says F. L. Lucas. But there's more on grammar.

LinguaLinks Library on www.sil.org speaks of different types of clauses such as adverbial, coordinate, equative, existential, final, finite, main, marking, medial, nominal, nonfinite, reference, relative, and subordinate. "Multiple independent clauses can be joined (usually with a comma and a coordinating conjunction) to form a compound sentence," educates Wiki. For example, "I am a bus driver, but I want to be an astronaut," or "I'm a CA, but I want to be an independent director."

In logic, a clause is a disjunction of literals, as http://mathworld.wolfram.com informs. "Horn clauses express a subset of statements of first-order logic. Programming language Prolog is built on top of Horn clauses," it adds. There are also empty and top clauses. Oxford Dictionary of Business defines a `claused' (or foul or dirty) bill of lading as one that carries a clause or endorsement by the master of the ship that the goods or their packing arrived for loading in a damaged condition.

Clause, according to Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing (http://foldoc.org) is "a part of a SQL statement that does not constitute a full statement; for e.g. a `WHERE clause'." Letter-clause is a close letter, sealed with the royal signet or privyseal, in opposition to letters-patent, which are left open, the seal being attached simply as a legal form, explains www.bartleby.com. "Clause Rolls contain all such matters of record as were committed to close writs. These Rolls are preserved in the Tower," is a snatch from Jacob's Law Dictionary, cited by Bartleby.

"Do not extort thy reasons from this clause, for that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause," writes the Bard in Twelfth Night. "But rather reason thus with reason fetter, love sought is good, but given unsought better," he continues. Alas, independence doesn't seem to happen without the fetter of a clause!

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

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