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When we need to link two grammatically equal sentence
elements—whether word to word, phrase to phrase, or clause to
clause—the basic connectives to use are the coordinating
conjunctions. There are seven of them: “and,” “but,”
“yet,” “or,” “nor,” “so,” and “for.” To make
them easier to remember, however, some grammarians suggest
rearranging them so their first letters can form the acronym “fanboys.”
The use of any of the
coordinating conjunctions creates what is called in English grammar
as a compound element, which can take the form of a compound
subject, a compound predicate, or a compound sentence, as in the
following sentences:
“Mangoes and melons become
abundant in summer.” Here, the coordinating conjunction “and”
connects the nouns “mangoes” and “melons” to form a compound
subject.
“This summer we’ll go to
Palawan or Boracay.” Here, the coordinating conjunction “or”
combines the verb phrases “go to Palawan” and “go to Boracay”
to form a compound predicate.
“They loved the place, but bad
weather cut short their stay.” Here, the coordinating conjunction
“but” connects the independent clauses “they loved the
place” and “bad weather cut short their stay” to form a
compound sentence.
Forming compound subjects and
compound predicates is, of course, very simple to do, but forming
compound sentences is not as simple. It requires a clear
understanding of what independent clauses and dependent or
subordinate clauses are, and what makes particular sentence elements
coequal or parallel. This is because coordinating conjunctions can
work only to combine independent clauses and coequal or parallel
sentence elements.
Remember now that an independent
clause can stand its own as a complete sentence, while a dependent
or subordinate clause can’t do so and must depend on another
clause to acquire meaning. Here’s an independent clause: “the
board rejected the proposal.” And here’s a dependent clause:
“seeing that it was so haphazardly done.” The second clause
obviously can’t stand on its own and needs another clause—an
independent one—to latch on. It can do that, for instance, by
making itself subordinate to the independent clause we gave earlier:
“Seeing that it was so haphazardly done, the board rejected the
proposal.”
We will also remember that for
two sentence elements to be coequal, none of them should be
dependent on or subordinate to the other; and that for them to be
parallel, both should have the same grammatical and structural form.
These are obviously not the case with the two sentence elements we
have just combined above. They are definitely not coequal because
one is an independent clause and the other a dependent one, and they
aren’t parallel either because they differ grammatically and
structurally.
Now we can discuss the role of
the coordinating conjunctions in compound sentence construction,
always keeping in mind that in general, the dependent clause being
combined must be set apart from the independent clause by a comma:
“And” is the basic connective
for establishing an additive relationship between two independent
clauses: “The warring families settled their differences, and
peace reigned between them for decades.”
“But” and “yet” both
indicate contrast or opposition between ideas expressed by two
independent clauses: “We enjoy unbridled partisan politics, but we
often regret its unpalatable outcomes. “She dreams of getting a
college education, yet she is always thwarted by funding
problems.”
“Or” indicates alternatives
indicated by two independent clauses: “We can go by boat tonight,
or we can take the early flight tomorrow.”
“Nor” indicates negation of
the ideas conveyed by two independent clauses: “Edwin didn’t
want to buy that old house nor wished to live in that overcrowded
neighborhood.”
“So” indicates an outcome
expressed by an independent clause: “She is an experienced
marketing manager, so she strongly qualifies for that job.”
“For,” in the sense of
“because,” expresses a cause-and-effect relationship between two
independent clauses: “The customer rejected the offer, for he
wanted a much better deal.”
(Next: The subordinating
conjunctions revisited)
j8carillo@yahoo.com
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