What are Conjunctions?

Conjunctions are the words that join sentences, phrases, and other words together.

The key word there is connect. Conjunctions are words that join parts of speech together to make more complex sentences. Some examples of conjunctions include for, and, nor, but, although, and while.

So what do conjunctions do for us? They help us join ideas together. 

For example: We could say “The weather report said it was going to rain. I forgot my umbrella.”

When you add a conjunction, the sentence flows like this:

• “The weather report said it was going to rain but I forgot my umbrella.”

*Instead of having two sentences, you turn it into one but adding the conjunction BUT.

There are three main types of conjunctions: COORDINATING, CORRELATIVE, and SUBORDINATING.

Coordinating conjunctions connect nouns with nouns or an independent clause. (An independent clause is a phrase that can stand on its own.)

For example:

• “I like grapes and strawberries.”

Above, the conjunction and combines the nouns grapes and strawberries.

• “I like going shopping, but I don’t like trying to find a place to park.”

Here, the conjunction but combines the independent clauses “I like going shopping” and “I don’t like driving around trying to find a place to park.” Each one of those phrases could be its own sentence, but they are combined by a coordinating conjunction.

In the next post, we’ll talk about CORRELATIVE conjunctions.