Conjunction (grammar)

Conjunction combines words, phrases or clauses.

• Conjunction etymology
  • con- = with
  • junct from Latin iugare for "to join"
    • note that Latin has no letter "J", so the English "J" sound is cognate with the Latin "iu" sound (yoo)
    • junct is from PIE origin *yeug- "to join"
  • -ion = makes a noun

Types of conjunctions

• conjunctions are used to combine words, sentence elements and ideas
• thus a conjunction

Coordinator or Coordinating Conjunction

• joins words of equal syntactic forms or importance
  • i.e., joins like words or sentence parts
    • = joins nouns or join verbs but not nouns to verbs
    • joins independent clauses
      • Tennis is fun, but it takes practice
    • joins dependent clauses
      • Since tennis takes practice, and although it takes much time, it is worth the effort
    • joins phrases
      • On Tuesday
    • but does not join a dependent clause or phrase to an independent clause
• ex.
  • "She and he went shopping."
  • "Apples or oranges are good for you"

Correlative conjunction

• "correlates" to conjunctions
• as / as
  • the test was not as bad as I thought
• either / or
  • Either you go or I will
• no sooner / than
  • No sooner than I got there, I realized I left my wallet behind
• neither / nor
  • Neither you nor she can go
• rather / than
  • The mailman would rather deliver in the rain than snow.
• whether / or
  • Whether you like it or not...

Prepositions as conjunctions

• a preposition and its object (prepositional phrase) modify another noun or verb
• however, some prepositions can also act as a conjunction
  • ex.
    • preposition: We ate dinner after the reception
    • conjunction: We ate dinner after the guests left

Rules for conjunctions

• todo:
• When using "or" in a list of subjects, the verb conjugates to the last subject
• ex.
  • Girls or the boy is