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In grammar, a conjunction (abbreviated CONJ or CNJ) is a part of speech that connects words, phrases, or clauses, which are called its conjuncts. That description is vague enough to overlap with those of other parts of speech because what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each language .
English subordinators (also known as subordinating conjunctions or complementizers) are words that mostly mark clauses as subordinate. The subordinators form a closed lexical category in English and include whether ; and, in some of their uses, if , that , for , arguably to , and marginally how .
In addition to a subject and a verb, dependent clauses contain a subordinating conjunction or similar word. There are a large number of subordinating conjunctions in English. Some of these give the clause an adverbial function, specifying time, place, or manner. Such clauses are called adverbial clauses.
The subordinate unit is called the dependent, and the superordinate unit the head. Thus anytime two syntactic units are in a head-dependent relationship, subordination obtains. For example: black dog with patience clean the bathroom. The word in bold in each case is dependent on the other word, which is its head.
In the examples below, the adverbial clause is italicized and the subordinating conjunction is bolded: Mary, the aspiring actress, became upset as soon as she saw the casting list. (subject: she; predicate: saw the casting list; the clause modifies the verb became) Peter, the drama teacher, met with Mary after she calmed down.
The following are single-word prepositions that take clauses as complements. Prepositions marked with an asterisk in this section can only take non-finite clauses as complements. Note that dictionaries and grammars informed by concepts from traditional grammar may categorize these conjunctive prepositions as subordinating conjunctions.
And the same held for many words categorized as subordinating conjunctions (e.g., I came before you did.). He therefore proposed that all these words are prepositions, and that the requirement that they be followed by a noun phrase be dropped. This is the position taken in many modern grammars, such as The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.
A conjunctive adverb, adverbial conjunction, or subordinating adverb is an adverb that connects two clauses by converting the clause it introduces into an adverbial modifier of the verb in the main clause. For example, in "I told him; thus, he knows" and "I told him. Thus, he knows", thus is a conjunctive adverb. [1]