coordinating conjunction
- noun
- /ˈkɔrdəˌneɪtɪŋ kənˈdʒʌŋkʃən/
- Specialized
:
conjunción coordinante
- The narratives of early resolvers and good responders differed significantly on the productivity index, number of coordinating conjunctions, and number of episodic elements.
Examples
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A coordinating conjunction, like and, can connect two similar ideas in a sentence.
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To form a compound sentence, you need a coordinating conjunction such as but to link the clauses.
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Essentially, a coordinating conjunction can join main clauses by a comma, whereas conjunctive adverbs can't.
Blog text (19) -
In writing, or is a coordinating conjunction that presents an alternative between words or phrases.
Synonyms
A word like and that connects two parts of a sentence
Antonyms
- Specialized
A word that joins a part of a sentence to the main sentence, like because or although
How Strong
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is fully compositional: 'coordinating' specifies joining elements of equal grammatical rank and 'conjunction' denotes a connecting word, so a learner who knows both constituents can infer it denotes a word that joins equal elements. This grammatical label also mirrors similar terms in many languages (e.g., Spanish 'conjunción coordinante', French 'conjonction de coordination'), which supports its immediate transparency for B1 learners.
Etymology
Coordinating conjunction comes from a simple image: coordinating means putting things side by side and conjunction means 'joining', like a small bridge between equals. So a coordinating conjunction is a word such as 'and', 'but', or 'or' that joins parts of a sentence of equal importance.
