CONNECTORS | connectors

CONNECTORS:
CONJUNCTIONS AND LINKING WORDS

Connectors are words used to link groups of other words, phrases and sentences. You can also use them to connect paragraphs to give them coherence. In grammatical terms, connectors, linking words, and discourse markers are not exactly the same. In some cases, we are talking about conjunctions but they can also be adverbs or even prepositions. However, all these words have something in common: they help us organize in a clear and logical way our written and oral texts.

conjunctions

In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that links words, phrases, or clauses together. Without conjunctions, we would be forced to express every complex idea in a series of short, simplistic sentences.

There are different types of conjunctions:

1- COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS

They join words, phrases, and clauses of equal grammatical rank. The most common coordinating conjunctions are FOR, AND, NOR, BUT, OR, YET, and SO. An easy mnemonic device to remember them is using the acronym FANBOYS.

2- CORRELATIVE CONJUNCTIONS

Correlative conjunctions come in pairs and relate one sentence element to another. Both of them must be used in different places in a sentence to make them work. Some of the most common ones are EITHER/OR, NEITHER/NOR, WHETHER/OR and NOT ONLY/BUT ALSO.

3- SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS

A subordinating conjunction is a word that connects a main clause to a subordinate clause. In English, there are lots of subordinating conjunctions. Some of them express time, a cause-and-effect relationship, a contrast, or some other kind of relationship. Common subordinating conjunctions are BECAUSE, ALTHOUGH, WHILE, IF, UNLESS...