Connectives

Connectives

A word that joins the words or sentences is called connective. Malmkjӕr (478), is defined as an indeclinable part of speech that links other parts of speech, in company with which it has significance, by classifying their meaning or relations. According to Leung (11), conjunctions have been studied under various labels and have drawn much attention from various scholars in the field of English/Linguistics over time: Halliday and Hasan (13) treat them as “linguistic devices that create cohesion”, while Sanders and Maat describe them as a “semantic relation that is explicitly marked” (1-2). According to Er, as cited by Aidinlou and Reshadi (611), conjunctions are a “semantic connection between two clauses”. Furthermore, Leung (11) cites four scholars in this regard. These are: Schiffrin, who treats conjunctions as “discourse markers”, Fraser considers them as a “pragmatic class of lexical expressions”, or simply, “pragmatic markers”, while Rouchota states that conjunctions “encode different meanings, andthat they can be a procedural device”, and lastly, Caron conceives conjunctions simply as being used “to express various kinds of relations between utterances”.

 

Basically there are two types of connectives. They are coordinating and subordinating.

1.   Coordinating connectives: A conjunction that is used to join the clauses of equal rank. . In other words, they generally connect sentence elements of the same grammatical class such as nouns with nouns, adverbs with adverbs, phrases with phrases and clauses with clauses. They also link two sentences that do not depend on each other for meaning. They are simply referred to as coordinators, and the art of joining two words, phrases, clauses or sentences using coordinators is known as coordination.

There are four types of coordinating connectives. They are:

i.              Cumulative: According to Murthy (215), These are used to join statements, or they add one statement to another. They include: and, so, both … and, as well as, not only … but also, no less than, etc.

ii.            Alternative: These are used to express a choice between two alternatives. They include: or, nor, either…or, neither…nor, else, whether…or, otherwise, etc.

iii.          Adversative: According to Halliday and Hasan (250), the meaning of the adversative relation is „contrary to expectation‟. The expectation may be derived from the content of what is being said, or from the communication process, in a speaker hearer situation. They include: but, still, only,.

iv.          Illative: so,therefore

2.   Functions of coordinating connectives:

i.              To combine two independent clause of same type: He was a good boy and he stood first in the class.

ii.            To combine two independent  clauses of the opposite type: He was intelligent but he failed the exam,

iii.          To combine two independent clauses denoting effect or inference: he did not study therefore he failed.

iv.          To combine two independent clauses to denote choice between two things: either come or go away.

3.   Subordinating connectives: Subordinating conjunctions are words which are used to link subordinate clauses with the main clauses in a complex sentence. They are conjunctions used to join clauses of unequal rank. In other words, they are used to join an independent or main (principal) clause with a dependent (subordinate) one that relies on the main clause for meaning and relevance. This means that main clauses can stand alone and do not depend on subordinate clauses while subordinate clauses cannot stand alone. As Aarts (46) notes, “another way of putting this is to say that subordination is a type of hypotaxis, a Greek term that means originally „syntactic underneath arrangement‟. This means that a subordinating conjunction causes the clause it appears in to become dependent, and that it will only be a sentence fragment unless it is joined to an independent clause. Simply, subordinating conjunctions are called subordinators and the art of using a subordinator to join two clauses together is referred to as subordination. According to Quirk and Greenbaum (309), subordination is a non-symmetrical relation, holding between two clauses in such a way that one is a constituent or part of the other. Also according to Huddleston (194), subordination in contrast with coordination, involves inequality, that is, a relation between a dependent (the subordinate element) and a head (the superordinate one). A subordinating conjunction can appear at the beginning or in the middle of a sentence. According to Sahebkeir & Aidinlou (125), subordinating conjunctions are also known as transitional conjunctions.

Subordinating conjunctions are words which are used to link subordinate clauses with the main clauses in a complex sentence. They are conjunctions used to join clauses of unequal rank. In other words, they are used to join an independent or main (principal) clause with a dependent (subordinate) one that relies on the main clause for meaning and relevance. This means that main clauses can stand alone and do not depend on subordinate clauses while subordinate clauses cannot stand alone. As Aarts (46) notes, “another way of putting this is to say that subordination is a type of hypotaxis, a Greek term that means originally „syntactic underneath arrangement‟. This means that a subordinating conjunction causes the clause it appears in to become dependent, and that it will only be a sentence fragment unless it is joined to an independent clause. Simply, subordinating conjunctions are called subordinators and the art of using a subordinator to join two clauses together is referred to as subordination. According to Quirk and Greenbaum (309), subordination is a non-symmetrical relation, holding between two clauses in such a way that one is a constituent or part of the other. Also according to Huddleston (194), subordination in contrast with coordination, involves inequality, that is, a relation between a dependent (the subordinate element) and a head (the superordinate one). A subordinating conjunction can appear at the beginning or in the middle of a sentence. According to Sahebkeir & Aidinlou (125), subordinating conjunctions are also known as transitional conjunctions. They are divided into eight sub groups: time, cause or reason, purpose, result or consequences, condition circumstances, concession and comparison.

                                                  i.         Time These are subordinators that express consequence in time or succession in time between clauses. Examples include: before, after, till, since, when, while, etc.

                                                ii.         Cause or Reason These are subordinators that express causal relations in the simplest form that mean „as a result of this‟ or „because of this‟. Examples include: because, since, as, and for.

                                              iii.         Result or Consequence Result/consequence and cause/reason are closely related but the main subordinator here is so and that. These have the relation that is expressed to mean „for this reason‟ which leads to something else.

                                              iv.         Purpose Purpose and cause/reason are closely related and the subordinators involved have the sense of „for this reason‟ or „for this purpose‟. They include: that, so that, in order that, lest, etc.

                                                 v.         Condition According to Quirk and Greenbaum (323), conditional subordinators state the dependence of one circumstance or set of circumstances on another. The main subordinators in English are if and unless. The if-clause could either be a positive or a negative condition while the unless-clause is a negative one.

                                              vi.         Circumstance These subordinators express a fulfilled condition, or to put differently, a relation between a premise in the subordinate clause and the conclusion drawn from it in the main clause. An example of this is a special circumstantial compound conjunction: seeing that.

                                            vii.         Concession These are subordinators that express the sense of „reluctant yielding‟. They are usually introduced by though and it’s more formal variant although, even if and occasionally if. Others include however, whereas, etc.

                                          viii.         Comparison These are subordinators that express comparison between dependent and independent clauses. They are introduced by than, as-as, as, etc. Sentential examples: She respected me more than I thought.

4.   Functions of subordinating conjunctions:

1.   To join principal and main clause:

a.    To denote time

b.   To denote cause

c.    To denote effect

d.   To denote purpose

e.    To denote manner

f.     To denote degree

g.    To denote condition

h.    To denote contrast

i.     To denote  apposition

j.     To denote concession

II. As relative pronoun relative adverb and interrogative adverb

 

Exercise

Complete the following sentences with however, although, or in spite of.

a.    … the fact that he is an octogenarian; he still leads an active life.

b.   I still enjoyed the week… the weather was bad.

c.    He has passed MA… , he hasn’t got a job.

d.   … I had a headache, I enjoyed the movie.

e.    Ramila didn’t get the job… the fact that she had all the necessary qualifications.

f.     …the fact that he had no money, he bought the car anyway.

g.    We can go to the park for lunch. …, the weather report says it’s going to rain.

h.    … I speak English well, my first language is actually Maithili.

Combine the following sentences using the words given in brackets.

a. He was annoyed. He didn’t say anything. (although)

b. Playing the stock market is exciting. It can be risky. (however)

c. He works slowly. He never makes a mistake. (even though)

d. It was raining. We still went to the park. (in spite of)

e. Hark bought the watch. It was expensive. (despite)

f. He is very poor. He wears expensive clothes. (but)

Rewrite the following sentences using (a) although and (b) in spite of.

a. He had very little time, but he offered to help us.

b. She is very poor, but she still wears expensive clothes.

c. He's a millionaire, but he lives in a very small flat.

d. They have a lot of money, but they are still not happy.

e. The traffic was heavy, but we got there in time.