English Conjunctions

A sentence is broken up into parts and joined together as a whole by using the joining words of the English language, called conjunctions.

Coordinating conjunctions

Coordinating conjunctions connect two independent clauses. Some common coordinating conjunctions are: and, but, or, however, while, so.

For example:

The man eats the pie, but he does not want the cake.

The cat runs around in the garden, however, he soon goes to sleep.

In this first example, ‘The man eats the pie’ is the first clause in the larger two part sentence, where the second clause is ‘he does not want the cake’. The conjunction (or connecting word) used here is ‘but’.

In the second example, the conjunction word connecting the two clauses is 'however'.

Subordinating Conjunctions

Subordinating conjunctions are used to connect two clauses when one clause is dependent on the other. Some common subordinating conjunctions are: because, unless, since, until, that, although, as if/though.

For example:

‘The woman was famous because she had written a successful book’.

‘This is the book that I chose for Mary's present’

‘The boy watched the film, although he did not enjoy it’.

In this first example, the clause ‘The woman was famous’ depends on the clause ‘because she had written a successful book’. In the second example, the second clause ‘I chose for Mary’s present’ is dependent on the first clause ‘This is the book’. The third example has ‘he did not enjoy it’ dependent on ‘the boy watched the film’.