Hi there, and welcome back to our parts of
speech series. In this lesson, you’re going to
learn about conjunctions. We’ll first discuss
what a conjunction is, and then we’ll look at
the four main types of conjunctions, and how to
avoid the most common mistake that people with
them – that is, how to punctuate conjunctions correctly in writing. Alright, let’s begin. As always, if you have any questions, just
let me know in the comments section below and
I will talk to you there. OK, so first, what is a
conjunction? A conjunction is a word that
connects parts of a sentence – it can connect words or it can connect phrases or even clauses. Look at these examples. In number one, “When
you go to London, you must try fish and chips.” Fish and chips is a popular food in the UK. So
here, the conjunction ‘and’ connects two words
– fish and chips. In the next sentence,
“My cell phone is either on the table or in the
drawer.” The conjunction is the combination of
‘either .. or’ and it connects two phrases ‘on the table’ and ‘in the drawer’. And in
number three, can you find the conjunction? The conjunction is ‘but ’ and it connects
two clauses (clauses are just like sentences)
– “Yazmin went to see her manager” is the
first clause and the second clause is
“he wasn’t in his office.” So you see here that conjunctions can connect
any two parts of a sentence. Alright so now
let’s talk about the different types of conjunctions in English. Conjunctions come in four major types:
coordinating conjunctions (these are the words and, or, but, so, yet, for and nor),
subordinating conjunctions (like because, after, although, if, until etc.),
correlative conjunctions (these are pairs of
conjunctions such as either .. or, neither .. nor, not only .. but also etc.)
– so in each one, you see two words that always
go together. And finally, conjunctive adverbs. These are words like as a result, however,
in addition and therefore. They are adverbs
but they act like conjunctions (that is, they help to join parts of a sentence). Now don’t
be scared by all these names – the names are
not important, what is important is knowing how to use the conjunctions correctly. Of course, conjunctions are a huge topic and
there are many grammar rules relating to them. So today, we will focus on avoiding the most
common type of mistake with conjunctions, and
that is, punctuating them correctly in writing. We won’t be discussing correlative conjunctions
because there aren’t any special punctuation rules with them – but we will be discussing
the other three. So let’s start with coordinating
conjunctions first. Coordinating conjunctions are probably the
most commonly used type of conjunction in English. These are the words: and, or, but,
so, yet, for and nor. Now, the words for and
nor can be used as conjunctions but they’re not used a lot (the word for is used much
more as a preposition not a conjunction). But the
other five are very common. Alright, let’s
talk about how to punctuate them correctly. On the screen, there are four sentences. You
will notice that there are no commas in these. So in all four sentences, I want you to put
commas wherever necessary. Pause the video and
think about your answers, then play the video again and check. OK, let’s look at the answers: in the first
two sentences, did you put a comma anywhere? Actually, you don’t need any commas in these
two sentences. That is because when a
conjunction only connects two words or two phrases, we don’t use commas. In number one,
the conjunction is ‘and ’ and it connects the
adjectives ‘beautiful’ and ‘spacious’. Only two
items – so no comma. In number two, the conjunction
is ‘or’ and it connects two noun phrases: ‘a library’
and ‘a restaurant’. So again, only two items,
so we don’t use a comma. In sentences three and four, commas are required. When we have lists of three or more items,
we use commas to separate them. In number three,
“We need to buy sugar (comma) butter (comma) flour (comma) and vanilla extract for the
cake.” Notice that there is a conjunction ‘and’
before the last item, and the comma goes before this
conjunction. Similarly, in number four, there
is a list of three items – guitar, piano, violin. This time, the conjunction is ‘or’. And just
like in the previous example, we use commas to separate the items, and the last comma
goes before the conjunction. Now there’s another very important rule
regarding coordinating conjunctions. And that
is that when a conjunction connects two independent clauses, you should always put
a comma after the first clause. Take a look at
these examples. Look at sentence number one: you see here
that it has two parts. The first part is “Abdul
gifted his mother an iPad for her birthday.” If you read this carefully, you will realize
that this can be a complete sentence by itself. So it’s called an independent clause. The same
is true for the second part – “she loved it.” This is also a complete sentence, so it’s
an independent clause as well. So the conjunction
‘and’ connects two independent clauses here,
so we put a comma after the first clause and before ‘and’. That is the rule. In all of these examples, there are two
independent clauses connected by a conjunction. In number two, “Kim wanted to work in Paris”
is the first clause, and the second clause is
“she couldn’t find a job there.” The
conjunction ‘but’ connects these clauses and
shows contrast, i.e. it shows that the two clauses are opposites. In number three, the conjunction ‘or’
shows that there are two options:
“we can go to the movies” (that’s the first
option – it’s also the first clause), and the
second option is “we can clean the house.” (that’s the second clause). For number four, imagine that we’re at a
restaurant. And you ask me, “what do you want
to eat?” And I say, “Oh, I’m not very hungry”
(now that’s the reason), so the result is “I’ll just have a milkshake.” Both of these
are independent clauses. Finally, in number five, you see the
conjunction ‘yet’. The meaning of this
sentence is that Revati is very good at programming but still she teaches economics. So the word ‘yet’ is like saying but still. Here, the first clause is “Revati is an
expert at computer programming” and the second
clause is “she teaches economics.” So in all of these sentences, we put a comma
after the first clause and before the conjunction. But you have to be careful here. Now have a
look at these next two sentences. You see that
there is no comma. And this is correct. But
can you tell me why there’s no comma? It’s
because in both of these sentences, there’s only
one clause. In number six, “Mr. Burns” is the
subject, followed by two verb phrases – “made a bad investment” is one verb phrase; “lost
all his savings” is another verb phrase. Remember
the rule? If a conjunction connects only two
words or phrases, no comma. It’s the same in
number seven – the subject is “I”, then there
are two verb phrases – “ordered a T-shirt online two weeks ago” is the first phrase,
and “still haven’t received it” is the second
phrase. So no comma. Alright, let’s now move on to our next topic
and talk about punctuation rules with subordinating conjunctions. Subordinating conjunctions are words like
because, unless, before, after, if etc. But
why are these called subordinating? Well,
look at this example: “After Luisa gets home from work,” Is
this a complete sentence? It is not. Because it has
the word ‘after’ in it. If we remove it, the
sentence can stand alone - “Luisa gets home from work” – it’s
fine. But if I say “After Luisa gets home from
work” you will ask OK then what? What does she do? So you see the sentence isn’t complete. Thus,
this is a dependent clause (which also called a subordinate clause). The conjunction ‘after’
makes it a subordinate clause or dependent, so ‘after’ is called a subordinating conjunction. To complete this sentence, we can add an
independent clause – so “After Luisa gets home from work,
she likes to watch TV for an hour.” Alright now
look at these examples. You see three pairs of sentences. In each pair,
sentence (a) and sentence (b) mean the same thing. But notice that sentences (a) have a
comma, but sentences (b) don’t have a comma. And this is correct. I want you look at these
examples carefully, and then say why there is
a comma in (a) but no comma in (b). Stop the
video if you want, think about it and then play the video again and check. OK, here’s the rule: when you connect a
dependent clause and an independent clause, if you put the dependent clause first, you
put a comma after it. If the independent clause
goes first, no comma. That symbol means no
comma. So in all of these, in sentences (a),
what comes first is a dependent or subordinate clause, meaning it is not a full sentence,
so we put a comma after it. In sentences (b), the
first clause is independent. The dependent
clause comes second. So no comma. This is an
important rule, so don’t forget it. OK, now finally, let’s turn to punctuation
rules with conjunctive adverbs. Now you might be thinking, why are we talking
about adverbs in a conjunctions lesson? Well
the reason is that some adverbs act like conjunctions, so we call them conjunctive
adverbs. These are words like however,
therefore, as a result, otherwise, moreover and so on. Here are some examples. You see that there is no punctuation inside
the sentences. That’s because I wanted to ask
you: how should I punctuate these sentences? Should I put commas? Where should I put them? If you want, stop the video, think about it,
then play the video again and check. Alright, here’s the correct punctuation. What
do you see? Well, you see that there are both
commas and semicolons. This is a special rule
of using conjunctive adverbs. Take the first
sentence: there are two clauses – the first is
“Zach loves living in San Francisco”, the second
is “his wife hates the traffic and the pollution.” Notice that both of these are independent
clauses, that is they are full sentences. Conjunctive adverbs are generally used to
connect independent clauses. The word ‘however’ has almost the same
meaning as ‘but’. You can actually say
“Zach loves living in San Francisco, but his wife hates the traffic and the pollution.” The meaning is the same. The difference is that
‘however’ is more formal, and the punctuation rules are different. Can you see the difference? With ‘but’ we only use a single comma
before it. With however , or any conjunctive adverb,
the most common way to punctuate them is with
a semicolon before, and a comma after. You can
see this in all of sentences. There’s another
way to write them - you can also write them with a period (or full-stop) in front. If you
do this, you end the first sentence, and then start a new sentence with the conjunctive
adverb: that’s also correct. And you can write
it this way with all of the conjunctive adverbs – therefore, moreover etc. Sometimes, you will
see the conjunctive adverb in the middle or end position like you see on the screen now. All of these mean the same thing. Notice that
when ‘however’ is in the middle, it is interrupting
the sentence, so we put a comma before and after to make it easy to read. If these rules are a little confusing, don’t
worry – you will get them will practice but
with conjunctive adverbs, make sure to remember the most important rule: semicolon or period
before (the period is also called a full-stop in British English) and the comma after. Alright, now let’s do a quick recap of all
the rules that we learned in this lesson. And
then I will give you a test to see if you can
punctuate conjunctions correctly. Rule number one – if a conjunction only
connects two words or phrases, no comma. Rule number two – in lists of three or more
items, put a comma after each item (except the last). Put the last comma before the
conjunction. Rule number three – when connecting two
independent clauses with a conjunction, always put a comma after the first clause. Rule number four – when connecting a dependent
clause to an independent clause, if the dependent clause comes first, put a comma
after it. If the independent clause comes first, no
comma. And finally rule number five – when
using conjunctive adverbs, either put a semicolon before and a comma after the adverb. Or a period before and a comma after. Alright, now it’s time for the test. On the screen, there are eight sentences,
and I want you to punctuate them with commas (,)
and semicolons (;) where necessary. Stop the
video if you want, think about your answers, then play the video again and check. Alright, let’s look at the answers: in
sentence number one, commas have to go after English and Spanish. This is a list with three
items, so we put commas after each item (except the last). Remember that the last comma goes
before the conjunction (and). But in sentence number two, you don’t need
any commas. This is because ‘and’ only connects two
items: Tuesday and Wednesday. In number three, there are two clauses. The first
is “We didn’t know it was going to rain”. Then
there’s the conjunction ‘so’ and then the second
clause “we didn’t bring our umbrellas.” Both
of these clauses are independent meaning that they can stand alone as sentences. For this
reason, we put a comma after the first clause. What about number four? In this sentence, you
need no commas. Notice that the conjunction is
‘but’. You might think that it’s connecting
two clauses here, but that’s not the case. There’s only one subject (Lamar) with two
verb phrases - “got job offers from four different
companies” and “didn’t accept any of them”. So the
conjunction is just connecting two phrases –
that’s why no comma. In number five, we have two clauses. The first
clause “When you see Shelly” is a dependent clause because it’s not a full sentence. The
second clause – “can you tell her to come and
see me?” is independent. Yes, it’s a question,
but it’s still a complete, meaningful sentence. What comes first is the dependent clause with
the conjunction ‘when.’ For this reason, we
put a comma after it. What about number six? Comma or no comma? Well,
how many clauses do you see? There are two:
one is independent and the other is dependent. The first clause – “I can’t log in”
– which is that? It’s the independent clause because it’s
complete. But the second clause, “because I
can’t remember my password” is dependent because
it’s not complete. Which comes first? The
independent clause, so no comma. Remember,
only if the dependent clause comes first, we
put a comma after it. In sentences seven and eight, notice that
we have conjunctive adverbs – ‘however’
in seven, and ‘therefore’ in eight. So what’s the rule
with conjunctive adverbs? The rule is:
semicolon before, comma after. You see this is
number seven. Another way to punctuate
conjunctive adverbs is with a period before and comma after. You can see this now with
number eight. Both forms are correct. Alright, how many did you get right? Let me
know in the comments. If you liked this lesson,
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