All About Conjunctions In English Grammar
The English language incorporated a system of word classes by which all words of the English language can be classified. We already had a look at the most well-known, common and biggest of them like nouns and verbs. The word class discussed in this article is far lesser known but equally important for our daily writing and conversations: conjunctions.
We’ll have a look at what they are and what their purpose is, alongside with a list of conjunctions you use on a regular basis without even recognizing their status.
Conjunctions In The English Language
What Are Conjunctions?
Generally spoken, conjunctions are used to connect items in our speech. These items can be words, phrases, but also whole clauses and sentences. The conjunction links them and establish or explains the relation between the connected items. They belong to the closed group of word classes which means that usually no new words with their function can be introduced to a language.
There are different types of conjunctions, depending on the items they can link together or their meaning:
Subordinating: link a dependent clause to an independent one
Coordinating: connect words, clauses, phrases or sentences that have the same syntactic importance
Correlative: connect words or phrases that are equally important in a sentence
When To Use Them
There are several uses or purposes for conjunction. We will have a look at them in the following examples.
Listing things: We bought eggs, flour and vanilla extract for the cookies.
Connecting thoughts, actions or ideas: He went out of the house and straight to the gym.
Setting things into relation: She was late because the train didn’t come in time.
The relations established, e.g. in the last example, can present different meanings:
- consequences
- contrasts
- exceptions
- explanations
- ideas
Agreement
When using conjunctions, all parts of the sentence should agree. When agreement is given the sentence is grammatical. Consider the following examples:
I tried to do it precisely and was careful. ?
I tried to do it precisely and carefully. ?
List Of Conjunctions
Here is a list of the conjunctions most commonly used in the English language.
- And
- As
- Because
- But
- For
- Just as
- Or
- Neither
- Nor
- Not only
- So
- Whether
- Yet
