Practice Makes Perfect

Conjunctions

Conjunctionsjoin words, phrases, and sentences together. First,

let’s look at some of the commonly used coordinating conjunctions:

and, but, or, nor, for, so, and yet. Notice how they can combine words,

phrases, or complete sentences:

Combined Words Combined Phrases Combined Sentences

“Don orNorma” “healthy again yet “We remained by the

unable to work” fire, butLance went

“meat and to the park to skate.”

potatoes”

Correlative conjunctionsare also important. They consist of a pair of

words that appear in different parts of the same sentence. The

most commonly used are both... and, either... or, neither... nor,

and not only... but also(sometimes stated as not only... also).

Examples:

BothYoko andMarco have problems.

Eitheryou work hard oryou leave.

Neitherthe boys northe girls wanted to end the game.

You are not onlya poor loser but alsoa bad soccer player.

Dependent (or subordinating) clauses consist of a subject and a

verb. But these clauses usually cannot stand alone. Dependent

clauses are preceded by subordinating conjunctions and are com-

bined with an independent clause. The list of subordinating con-

junctions is long. Here are some of the most commonly used:

after before since until

although even though so that when

as if how than whenever

as long as if that where

as though now that though wherever

because once unless while

106

Unit 21

06 (099-132B) Units 20-25 11/3/04 1:42 PM Page 106

Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click here for terms of use.