Definition
Some words are satisfied
spending an evening at home, alone, eating ice-cream right out of the box,
watching Seinfeld re-runs on TV, or reading a good book.
Others aren't happy unless they're out on the town, mixing it up with other
words; they're joiners and they just can't help
themselves. A conjunction is a joiner, a word that connects (conjoins)
parts of a sentence.
Coordinating
Conjunctions
The simple, little
conjunctions are called coordinating conjunctions (you can
click on the words to see specific descriptions of each one):
Coordinating
Conjunctions
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(It may help you remember
these conjunctions by recalling that they all have fewer than four letters.
Also, remember the acronym FANBOYS: For-And-Nor-But-Or-Yet-So.
Be careful of the wordsthen and now; neither is a
coordinating conjunction, so what we say about coordinating conjunctions' roles
in a sentence and punctuation does not apply to those two words.)
When a coordinating
conjunction connects two independent clauses, it is often (but not
always) accompanied by a comma:
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Ulysses wants to play for UConn, but he has had
trouble meeting the academic requirements.
When the two independent clauses connected by a coordinating
conjunction are nicely balanced or brief, many writers will omit the comma:
·
Ulysses has a great jump shot but he isn't quick on his feet.
A comma is also correct when and is used to
attach the last item of a serial list, although many writers (especially in newspapers)
will omit that final comma:
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Ulysses spent his summer studying basic math, writing, and reading
comprehension.
When a coordinating conjunction is used to connect all the
elements in a series, a comma is not used:
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Presbyterians and Methodists and Baptists
are the prevalent Protestant congregations in Oklahoma.
A comma is also used with but when expressing a
contrast:
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This is a useful rule, but difficult to remember.
In most of their other
roles as joiners (other than joining independent clauses, that is),
coordinating conjunctions can join two sentence elements without the help of a
comma.
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Hemingway and Fitzgerald are among the American
expatriates of the between-the-wars era.
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Hemingway was renowned for his clear style and his
insights into American notions of male identity.
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It is hard to say whether Hemingway or Fitzgerald
is the more interesting cultural icon of his day.
·
Although Hemingway is sometimes disparaged for his unpleasant
portrayal of women and for his glorification of machismo,
we nonetheless find some sympathetic, even heroic, female figures in his
novels and short stories.
Beginning a Sentence
with And or But
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A frequently asked question about conjunctions is whether and or but can
be used at the beginning of a sentence. This is what R.W. Burchfield has to
say about this use ofand:
There is a persistent belief that it is
improper to begin a sentence with And, but this prohibition has
been cheerfully ignored by standard authors from Anglo-Saxon times onwards.
An initial And is a useful aid to writers as the narrative
continues.
from The New
Fowler's Modern English Usage
edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996.
Used with the permission of Oxford University Press.
The same is true with the conjunction but. A
sentence beginning with and or but will
tend to draw attention to itself and its transitional function. Writers
should examine such sentences with two questions in mind: (1) would the
sentence and paragraph function just as well without the initial conjunction?
(2) should the sentence in question be connected to the previous sentence? If
the initial conjunction still seems appropriate, use it.
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Among the coordinating
conjunctions, the most common, of course, are and, but,
and or. It might be helpful to explore the uses of these three
little words. The examples below by no means exhaust the possible meanings of
these conjunctions.
a.
To suggest that one idea is chronologically sequential to another:
"Tashonda sent in her applications and waited by the phone
for a response."
b.
To suggest that one idea is the result of another: "Willie
heard the weather report and promptly boarded up his
house."
c.
To suggest that one idea is in contrast to another (frequently
replaced by but in this usage): "Juanita is brilliant and Shalimar
has a pleasant personality.
d.
To suggest an element of surprise (sometimes replaced by yet in
this usage): "Hartford is a rich city and suffers from
many symptoms of urban blight."
e.
To suggest that one clause is dependent upon another, conditionally
(usually the first clause is an imperative): "Use your credit cards
frequently and you'll soon find yourself deep in debt."
f.
To suggest a kind of "comment" on the first clause:
"Charlie became addicted to gambling — and that surprised
no one who knew him."
a.
To suggest a contrast that is unexpected in light of the first
clause: "Joey lost a fortune in the stock market, but he
still seems able to live quite comfortably."
b.
To suggest in an affirmative sense what the first part of the
sentence implied in a negative way (sometimes replaced by on the
contrary): "The club never invested foolishly, but used
the services of a sage investment counselor."
c.
To connect two ideas with the meaning of "with the exception
of" (and then the second word takes over as subject):
"Everybody but Goldenbreath is trying out for the
team."
a.
To suggest that only one possibility can be realized, excluding
one or the other: "You can study hard for this exam or you
can fail."
b.
To suggest the inclusive combination of alternatives: "We can
broil chicken on the grill tonight, or we can just eat
leftovers.
c.
To suggest a refinement of the first clause: "Smith College
is the premier all-women's college in the country, or so it
seems to most Smith College alumnae."
d.
To suggest a restatement or "correction" of the first
part of the sentence: "There are no rattlesnakes in this canyon, or so
our guide tells us."
e.
To suggest a negative condition: "The New Hampshire state
motto is the rather grim "Live free or die."
f.
To suggest a negative alternative without the use of an imperative
(see use of and above): "They must approve his political style or they
wouldn't keep electing him mayor."
The conjunction NOR is
not extinct, but it is not used nearly as often as the other conjunctions, so
it might feel a bit odd when nor does come up in conversation
or writing. Its most common use is as the little brother in the correlative
pair, neither-nor (see below):
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He is neither sane nor brilliant.
·
That is neither what I said nor what I meant.
>It can be used with other negative expressions:
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That is not what I meant to say, nor should you
interpret my statement as an admission of guilt.
It is possible to use nor without a preceding
negative element, but it is unusual and, to an extent, rather stuffy:
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George's handshake is as good as any written contract, nor has he
ever proven untrustworthy.
The word YET functions
sometimes as an adverb and has several meanings: in addition ("yet another
cause of trouble" or "a simple yet noble woman"), even
("yet more expensive"), still ("he is yet a novice"),
eventually ("they may yet win"), and so soon as now ("he's not
here yet"). It also functions as a coordinating conjunction meaning
something like "nevertheless" or "but." The word yet seems
to carry an element of distinctiveness that but can seldom
register.
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John plays basketball well, yet his favorite
sport is badminton.
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The visitors complained loudly about the heat, yet they
continued to play golf every day.
In sentences such as the second one, above, the pronoun subject of
the second clause ("they," in this case) is often left out. When that
happens, the comma preceding the conjunction might also disappear: "The
visitors complained loudly yet continued to play golf every day."
Yet is sometimes combined with other conjunctions, but or and.
It would not be unusual to see and yet in sentences like the
ones above. This usage is acceptable.
The word FOR is
most often used as a preposition, of course, but it does serve, on rare
occasions, as a coordinating conjunction. Some people regard the
conjunction for as rather highfalutin and literary, and it
does tend to add a bit of weightiness to the text. Beginning a sentence with
the conjunction "for" is probably not a good idea, except when you're
singing "For he's a jolly good fellow. "For" has serious
sequential implications and in its use the order of thoughts is more important
than it is, say, with because or since. Its
function is to introduce the reason for the preceding clause:
·
John thought he had a good chance to get the job, for his
father was on the company's board of trustees.
·
Most of the visitors were happy just sitting around in the
shade, for it had been a long, dusty journey on the train.
Be careful of the
conjunction SO. Sometimes it can connect two independent clauses along with a
comma, but sometimes it can't. For instance, in this sentence,
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Soto is not the only Olympic athlete in his family, so are his
brother, sister, and his Uncle Chet.
where the word so means "as well" or
"in addition," most careful writers would use a semicolon between the
two independent clauses. In the following sentence, where so is
acting like a minor-league "therefore," the conjunction and the comma
are adequate to the task:
·
Soto has always been nervous in large gatherings, so it is no
surprise that he avoids crowds of his adoring fans.
Sometimes, at the beginning of a sentence, so will
act as a kind of summing up device or transition, and when it does, it is often
set off from the rest of the sentence with a comma:
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So, the sheriff peremptorily removed the child from the custody of
his parents.
The Case of Then and Than
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 In some parts of the United States, we are told, then and than not
only look alike, they sound alike. Like a teacher with twins in her
classroom, you need to be able to distinguish between these two words;
otherwise, they'll become mischievous. They are often used and they should be
used for the right purposes.
Than is used to make comparisons. In the sentence "Piggy
would rather be rescued then stay on the island," we
have employed the wrong word because a comparison is being made between
Piggy's two choices; we need than instead. In the sentence,
"Other than Pincher Martin, Golding did not
write another popular novel," the adverbial construction "other
than" helps us make an implied comparison; this usage is perfectly
acceptable in the United States but careful writers in the UK try to avoid it
(Burchfield).
Generally, the only
question about than arises when we have to decide whether
the word is being used as a conjunction or as a preposition. If it's a
preposition (and Merriam-Webster's dictionary provides for this usage), then
the word that follows it should be in the object form.
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He's taller and somewhat more handsome
than me.
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Just because you look like him doesn't mean
you can play better than him.
Most careful writers,
however, will insist that than be used as a conjunction;
it's as if part of the clause introduced by than has been
left out:
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He's taller and somewhat more handsome
than I [am handsome].
·
You can play better than he [can
play].
In formal, academic
text, you should probably use than as a conjunction and
follow it with the subject form of a pronoun (where a pronoun is
appropriate).
Then is a conjunction, but it is not one of
the little conjunctions listed at the top of this page. We can use the FANBOYS conjunctions to connect two independent
clauses; usually, they will be accompanied (preceded) by a comma. Too many
students think that then works the same way: "Caesar
invaded Gaul, then he turned his attention to England." You can tell the
difference between then and a coordinating conjunction by
trying to move the word around in the sentence. We can write "he then
turned his attention to England"; "he turned his attention, then,
to England"; he turned his attention to England then." The word can
move around within the clause. Try that with a conjunction, and you will
quickly see that the conjunction cannot move around. "Caesar invaded
Gaul, and then he turned his attention to England." The
word and is stuck exactly there and cannot move like then,
which is more like an adverbial conjunction (or conjunctive adverb — see
below) than a coordinating conjunction. Our original sentence in this
paragraph — "Caesar invaded Gaul, then he turned his attention to
England" — is a comma
splice, a faulty sentence
construction in which a comma tries to hold together two independent clauses
all by itself: the comma needs a coordinating conjunction to help out, and
the word then simply doesn't work that way.
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Subordinating Conjunctions
A Subordinating
Conjunction (sometimes called a dependent word or subordinator) comes
at the beginning of a Subordinate (or Dependent) Clause and
establishes the relationship between the dependent clause and the rest of the
sentence. It also turns the clause into something that depends on the rest of
the sentence for its meaning.
·
He took to the stage as though he had been
preparing for this moment all his life.
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Because he loved acting, he
refused to give up his dream of being in the movies.
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Unless we act now, all is
lost.
Notice that some of the subordinating
conjunctions in the table below — after, before, since — are also prepositions,
but as subordinators they are being used to introduce a clause and to
subordinate the following clause to the independent element in the sentence.
Common Subordinating
Conjunctions
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after
although
as
as if
as long as
as though
because
before
even if
even though
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if
if only
in order that
now that
once
rather than
since
so that
than
that
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though
till
unless
until
when
whenever
where
whereas
wherever
while
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Strictly speaking, the
word like is a preposition, not a conjunction. It can,
therefore, be used to introduce a prepositional phrase ("My brother is
tall like my father"), but it should not be used to
introduce a clause ("My brother can't play the piano like as
he did before the accident" or "It looks like as
if basketball is quickly overtaking baseball as America's national
sport."). To introduce a clause, it's a good idea to use as, as
though, or as if, instead.
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Like As I told you earlier,
the lecture has been postponed.
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It looks like as if it's
going to snow this afternoon.
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Johnson kept looking out the window like as
though he had someone waiting for him.
In formal, academic
text, it's a good idea to reserve the use of like for situations
in which similarities are being pointed out:
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This community college is like a
two-year liberal arts college.
However, when you are
listing things that have similarities, such as is probably
more suitable:
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The college has several highly regarded neighbors, like such
as the Mark Twain House, St. Francis Hospital, the Connecticut Historical
Society, and the UConn Law School.
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The word that is
used as a conjunction to connect a subordinate clause to a preceding verb. In
this construction that is sometimes called the
"expletivethat." Indeed, the word is often omitted to
good effect, but the very fact of easy omission causes some editors to take
out the red pen and strike out the conjunction that wherever
it appears. In the following sentences, we can happily omit the that (or
keep it, depending on how the sentence sounds to us):
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Isabel knew [that] she was about to be fired.
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She definitely felt [that] her fellow
employees hadn't supported her.
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I hope [that] she doesn't blame me.
Sometimes omitting
the that creates a break in the flow of a sentence, a break
that can be adequately bridged with the use of a comma:
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The problem is, that production
in her department has dropped.
·
Remember, that we didn't have
these problems before she started working here.
As a general rule, if
the sentence feels just as good without the that, if no
ambiguity results from its omission, if the sentence is more efficient or
elegant without it, then we can safely omit the that. Theodore
Bernstein lists three conditions in which we should maintain the
conjunction that:
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When a time element intervenes between the
verb and the clause: "The boss said yesterday that production
in this department was down fifty percent." (Notice the position of
"yesterday.")
·
When the verb of the clause is long delayed:
"Our annual report revealed that some losses sustained
by this department in the third quarter of last year were worse than
previously thought." (Notice the distance between the subject
"losses" and its verb, "were.")
·
When a second that can clear
up who said or did what: "The CEO said that Isabel's department was
slacking off and that production dropped precipitously in
the fourth quarter." (Did the CEO say that production dropped or was the
drop a result of what he said about Isabel's department? The second that makes
the sentence clear.)
Authority for this section: Dos, Don'ts & Maybes
of English Usage by Theodore Bernstein. Gramercy Books: New York.
1999. p. 217. Examples our own.
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Beginning a Sentence
with Because
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Somehow, the notion
that one should not begin a sentence with the subordinating conjunction because retains
a mysterious grip on people's sense of writing proprieties. This might come
about because a sentence that begins with because could well
end up a fragment if one is not careful to follow up the "because
clause" with an independent clause.
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Because e-mail now plays such a huge role in
our communications industry.
When the "because
clause" is properly subordinated to another idea (regardless of the
position of the clause in the sentence), there is absolutely nothing wrong
with it:
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Because e-mail now plays such a huge role in
our communications industry, the postal service would very much like to see
it taxed in some manner.
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Some conjunctions combine
with other words to form what are called correlative conjunctions.
They always travel in pairs, joining various sentence elements that should be
treated as grammatically equal.
·
She led the team not only in statistics but
also by virtue of her enthusiasm.
·
Polonius said, "Neither a borrower nor a
lender be."
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Whether you win this
race or lose it doesn't matter as long as you do your best.
Correlative conjunctions sometimes create problems in parallel
form. Click HERE for help with those problems. Here is a brief list of common
correlative conjunctions.
both
. . . and
not only . . . but also
not . . . but
either . . . or
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neither
. . . nor
whether . . . or
as . . . as
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Conjunctive Adverbs
The conjunctive
adverbs such as however, moreover, nevertheless, consequently,
as a result are used to create complex relationships between ideas.
Refer to the section on Coherence: Transitions Between Ideas for
an extensive list of conjunctive adverbs categorized according to their various
uses and for some advice on their application within sentences (including
punctuation issues).
