Conjunctions

Описание: Conjunctions:

They connect words, phrases, sentences, or clauses.

1) Coordinating conjunctions:
To remember all the seven words, you might want to learn acronyms (FANBOYS)
For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So

A) For simple (independent) sentence: We connect words or a list of items.
(Simple sentence = subject + verb + object)

First, we connect words:

E.g. Would you like tea or coffee? We are connecting two nouns.

E.g. He reads and writes English very well. We are connecting two verbs.

E.g. She is beautiful and gorgeous. We are connecting two adjectives.

E.g. Jane drives slowly and carefully. We are connecting two adverbs.

E.g. I need to buy a banana, an apple, a mongo, and a kiwi. We are connecting a list of nouns.

E.g. My son looks poorly dressed yet well mannered. We are connecting clauses.

So we don’t need a comma with the above examples.

B) For compound (two independent) sentences:

Compound sentence = simple sentence + simple sentence = compound sentence
Independent sentence + independent sentence = compound sentence

Here we need to use a comma before the coordinating conjunction.

E.g. I was very tired, so I went to bed early.

E.g. I went home early, for I was very tired.

E.g. He went to bed early and slept right away.

E.g. We didn’t complete the movie, nor did we get any sleep.

E.g. She started to write a book a year ago, yet she didn’t finish it.

E.g. You can stay with us, or you can go outside.

E.g. Surfing the net is wonderful, but it consumes a lot of time.

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2) Subordinating conjunctions:

(After, although, though, since, while, if, when, until, unless, even if, so that, where, whenever, wherever, whereas, as, even though, in order to, rather than, till)

They connect complex sentences or clauses.

How to form a complex sentence?

Independent sentence + dependent sentence = complex sentence
Dependent sentence + independent sentence = complex sentence

Dependent sentence can’t stand alone by itself. (the meaning is not clear)

When a complex sentence begins the sentence or clause use comma before the second sentence or the clause.

1) E.g. After I finish the lesson, I will play football.

2) E.g. I will play football after I finish the lesson.

3) E.g. My students like English because they love chatting online.

4) E.g. Because they love chatting online, my students like English.

5) E.g. Some people like dogs; however, other people don’t.

6) E.g. Some people like dogs. However, other people don’t.

In sentences 5 and 6 you have a choice to use either semicolon (;) and a comma or full stop (.) and a comma before the subordinating conjunctions.

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