What Word Begins The Subordinate Clause In The Following Sentence: Dolly Must Clean Up Her Room Before She Goes Out. Is It Dolly, Clean, Before, Or She?

The word that begins the subordinate clause is before. The word before, used in this sentence, is a subordinating conjunction, (ie a "joining word used to join a main clause to a dependent one) and its use indicates the start of a subordinate clause.

The reason for this is that "before" is only used at the start of a dependent or subordinate phrase. "Before she goes out" isn't a sentence, as the presence of the word "because" tells us that the sentence has another part, and the other part is where the main message ( main clause) is to be found. This is the real reason why we are told at school not to start sentences with "because" "and" or "but" - because these words are there to join two things together and therefore shouldn't be used to introduce the whole sentence. But I don't think that's so important!

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