Hi, Wayne! Recently you wrote in a message to Dallas Hinton:
WH> So now I know that /but/ is an adversative conjunction.
WH> That's great.
Ah, I see you've done your homework. I like that... [chuckle].
WH> It seems there is a classification of sentences among
WH> ``coordinating sentences'' and ``subordinating sentences''.
WH> Is that correct?
I think you're on the right track. According to my GAGE CANADIAN
DICTIONARY conjunctions may be co-ordinating, subordinating, or correlative.
"And", "but", and "or" (e.g.) are co-ordinating conjunctions.
They join elements which are grammatically equal & they don't
suggest any one is more important than another.
"Because", "whereas", and "although" (e.g.) are subordinating
conjunctions. They suggest one idea... the idea not preceded
by the conjunction... is more important than the other. I am
reminded here of a girl I knew in high school who broke a leg
during the Christmas holidays... when, as she confided to me,
she fell down the basement stairs. She let other folks think
she'd had a skiing accident, because the fashionable crowd at
this school liked expen$ive sports. The main ideas here are,
AFAIC, that she broke a leg & others made assumptions.
Correlative conjunctions, such as "(n)either... (n)or" & "not
only... but also" are used in pairs. Some grammarians regard
these as a variety of co-ordinating conjunctions.
Anything which could stand on its own as a sentence... because it
includes a subject & predicate... is regarded as a clause when it's combined
with similar elements. I reckon that's +/- what you had in mind there. :-)
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
* Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)
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