In grammar, a conjunction (abbreviated conj or cnj) is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each language. In general, a conjunction is an invariable grammatical particle, and it may or may not stand between the items it conjoins.
The definition can also be extended to idiomatic phrases that behave as a unit with the same function as a single-word conjunction (as well as, provided that, etc.).
Many students are taught that certain conjunctions (such as "and", "but", and "so") should not begin sentences, although this belief has "no historical or grammatical foundation".[1]
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Coordinating conjunctions, also called coordinators, are conjunctions that join two or more items of equal syntactic importance, such as words, main clauses, or sentences. In English the mnemonic acronym FANBOYS can be used to remember the coordinators for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so.[2][3] These are not the only coordinating conjunctions; various others are used, including[4]:ch. 9[5]:p. 171 "and nor" (British), "but nor" (British), "or nor" (British), "neither" ("They don't gamble; neither do they smoke"), "no more" ("They don't gamble; no more do they smoke"), and "only" ("I would go, only I don't have time").
Here are the meanings and some examples of coordinating conjunctions in English:
Correlative conjunctions work in pairs to join words and groups of words of equal weight in a sentence. There are six different pairs of correlative conjunctions. 1) either...or 2) not only...but also 3) neither...nor 4) both...and 5) whether...or 6)just as...so
Examples:
Subordinating conjunctions, also called subordinators, are conjunctions that conjoin an independent clause and a dependent clause. The most common subordinating conjunctions in the English language include the following: after, although, as, as far as, as if, as long as, as soon as, as though, because, before, if, in order that, since, so, so that, than, though, unless, until, when, whenever, where, whereas, wherever, and while. Complementizers can be considered to be special subordinating conjunctions that introduce complement clauses (e.g., "I wonder whether he'll be late. I hope that he'll be on time"). Some subordinating conjunctions (until and while), when used to introduce a phrase instead of a full clause, become prepositions with identical meanings.
In many verb-final languages, subordinate clauses must precede the main clause on which they depend. The equivalents to the subordinating conjunctions of non-verb-final languages such as English are either
Such languages in fact often lack conjunctions as a part of speech because:
In other West-Germanic languages like German or Dutch, the word order after a subordinating conjunction is different from the one in an independent clause, e.g. in Dutch want (for) is coordinating, but omdat (because) is subordinating. The clause after the coordinating conjunction has normal word order, but the clause after the subordinating conjunction has verb-final word order. Compare:
Similarly, in German, "denn" (for) is coordinating, but "weil" (because) is subordinating: