Conjunctions

There are many parts of a sentence that you would have learned in about in school. Some of them are common and easy to remember like nouns, verbs and adjectives etc. but there are some that we forget about. We still use them in our daily life speaking and writing, but when the time comes to recognize and pinpoint them in a sentence, we find ourselves gawking for some hint. One such part of speech and sentence is conjunction.

In today’s article, I will discuss in detail about what conjunctions are and how they are used in a sentence to refresh your old memories.

Conjunction

The word conjunction is a synonym of joiner or combiner which means that it joins or combines two other parts of speech. By definition, a conjunction is a word in a sentence that forms a relationship between two other words, phrases or clauses by joining them together.

Example:

He is smart and handsome.

Take this example for instance, the word and is used to join two words (adjectives) i.e. smart and handsome in such a way that they form a relationship with each other and the subject. Thus and is a conjunction is above example.

This was the simplest form of conjunctions. Conjunctions can further be divided into many types depending on the words they link and the relationships they form.

Now we will discuss some of the types of conjunctions.

Coordination Conjunctions

The simplest and most commonly used type of conjunction is the coordination conjunction. When the conjunction links grammatically equal words or phrases together in a sentence, they are usually termed as coordination conjunctions. One of the main characteristic of coordination conjunction is that it comes in between the words or phrases that it links and this is one way of remembering them as well.

Example:

The boss called Sara or Sophia in his room.

In the above example, the conjunction or develops the relationship between two words Sara and Sophia and is the coordination conjunction.

His socks were in the drawer or under the bed.

Now this example uses or conjunction to link two phrases in the drawer and under the bed thus it is a coordination conjunction.

Subordination Conjunction

The type of conjunctions that links two clauses together and forms a relationship between the independent clause and the dependent clause are termed as subordination conjunctions.

Example:

The journey was very long, so I brought along two bottles of water.

In the above example, the word so forms a relationship between two clauses the journey was so long and I brought along two bottles of water. Thus the conjunction so will be categorized as a subordination conjunction. Also notice that comma that is placed before the conjunction.

As the journey was very long, I brought along two bottles of water.

Now the same example is used with another subordination conjunction i.e. as. In this example, the subordination conjunction occurs at the beginning of the sentence and not in the middle of the clauses.

Some examples of subordination conjunctions include although/before/even if/because/no matter how/whether/wherever/when/until/after/as if/how/if/provided/in that/once/supposing/while etc.

Correlation Conjunction

The third type of conjunction is called correlation conjunction and as the name shows they are not a single but a pair of conjunctions that join or link two equal sentences together.

Example:

It’s either raining or snowing at my home right now.

In the above example, a pair of conjunctions i.e. either and or are used to join together two phrases in a sentences forming a link between them. Thus they are called correlative conjunctions.

Some other examples of correlative conjunctions include neither… nor/not only… but also/both… and/whether… or/so… as etc.