COROLLARY THEOREMS - ENGLISH GRAMMAR: CONJUNCTIONS

English Grammar Notes #10:

CONJUNCTIONS

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DEFINITION (fragment from Definition M9 in LSEG)
"Conjunction" is the sentence element used to link two similar sentence elements, or two clauses in a complex sentence. Although conjunctions have no syntactic functions by themselves, they set complex morphologic and syntactic ...

The structure used to present conjunctions is:
1. Types of Conjunctions
2. Conjunctions' Functions
3. Particular Conjunctions

ATTENTION
These Grammar Notes are not sufficient to understand the topics presented. For accurate and detailed information we recommend Logically Structured English Grammar book.

TYPES OF CONJUNCTIONS

Conjunctions exhibit complex binding functionality. In most instances, conjunctions tie together two similar sentence elements, or they link two clauses in a complex sentence construction.

Considering their form, conjunctions are categorized as being:
A. simple
B. compound
C. correlative
D. conjunctional phrases

A lot more complex structure is implemented based on the linking relations conjunctions set for the two connected sentence elements/clauses.

CONJUNCTIONS' FUNCTIONS

Conjunctions have two major functions which also correspond to the relations they set for the two sentence/syntactic elements they bind together:

1. COORDINATION
In turn, coordinating conjunctions can be:
1. copulative or coordinative, when they add another element similar to the previous one;
2. aversive, when they introduce a contrast;
3. disjunctive, when they express an alternative;
4. illative, when they introduce a conclusion;
5. explanatory, when they add an explanation.

2. SUBORDINATION
Subordinating conjunctions are further discriminated into conjunctions:
1. of time, when they introduce temporal clauses;
2. of place, when they introduce spatial clauses;
3. of manner, when they introduce manner-specific clauses;
4. of cause, when they introduce causative clauses;
5. of purpose, when they introduce final-purpose clauses;
6. of concession, when they introduce concessive clauses;
7. conditional, when they introduce conditional clauses;
8. consecutive, when they introduce a two parts logic clauses succession;
9. of comparison, used in comparative sentences;
10. relative, when they introduce relative clauses;
11. subject clause conjunctions, when they introduce subjective clauses;
12. object clause conjunctions, when they introduce object or adverbial clauses;
13. attributive clause conjunctions, when they introduce attributive clauses.

Examples of using each category of conjunctions in context are presented in LSEG.

Fragment from LSEG: Chart - Categories of conjunctions based on functionality.

LSEG: categories of conjunctions based on functionality

PARTICULAR CONJUNCTIONS

# Like
The use of conjunction "like" needs to be avoided as much as possible, because it is greatly abused. However, the problem is, it is not easy to replace "like", and in some situations that is simply impossible. Each particular occurrence of "like" needs to be investigated for possible equivalent words/phrases, for example: "as is"; "as"; "such as"; "as if"; "as when"; "for example"; etc.

However, there are instances when "like" is the best conjunction, and you should use it without worries, because clarity is the most important in English grammar.

Fragment from LSEG: using conjunction "like".

Fragment from LSEG: using conjunction "like"

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