All complete sentences have at least one independent clause. You can identify an independent clause by reading it on its own and looking for the subject and the verb. Subjects When you read a sentence, you may first look for the subject, or what the sentence is about. The subject usually appears at the beginning of a sentence as a noun or a pronoun. A noun is a word that identifies a person, place, thing, or idea. A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun. Common pronouns are I, he, she, it,