Introduction to Coordinating Conjunctions
In the previous grammar chapters of the course we talked extensively about the different components of an independent clause, what function they have and how some of them form a "government of the sentence." We treated every clause as an individual complete sentence, a simple sentence that is composed of one subject and one predicate. Human speech, however, does not operate very often with unconnected clauses. We constantly put two or three simple sentences together into one longer sentence or we link the statement made in a sentence to the statement made in the next sentence or the previous one .
To join two or more simple sentences so that they become independent clauses of equal importance, but with a connection between them, one uses coordinating conjunctions and the result is a compound sentence.
Actually, you have been using these all along, right from the very first dialogue. We did not say:
Er ist auch Student. Er heißt Andreas. Jochen ist auch noch Student. Jochen hat schon eine Firma. Er macht Werbefilme und kommerzielle Webseiten.
No, we said:
Er ist auch Student und heißt Andreas. Jochen ist auch noch Student, aber er hat schon eine Firma und macht Werbefilme und kommerzielle Webseiten.
So our discussion of this type of sentence will be mostly a review and expansion of something you already are familiar with.
Sometimes, though, the clauses in a sentence are not all simple sentences. There is a main clause which has a subject and predicate of the kind we have learned to construct. But the other clause or clauses are linked to the main clause in such a way that they can't stand alone--they are called dependent clauses. and the result is a complex sentence.
The dependent clause can also be called a subordinate clause, and it is usually introduced by a subordinating conjunction.
In English, people have to decide whether to use who or whom in a complex sentence, but in German there are a lot more rules to consider.
Let's start with examples in English:
Compound sentences:
I went for a walk, [and] stopped at the grocery store, and then went home.
Mary was sick, so she couldn't come to class.
Mary was sick, but Anna volunteered to take her place.
Either you are with me or [you are] against me.
In these examples, the clauses are of equal weight. You can even omit some of the words because they function in the same way in each sentence.
(In some cases, you could also use the conjunctions to begin the second simple sentence; this is casual usage, but grammatical: You are with me, right? Or else you're against me!)
Complex sentence:
I got home before it started raining.
I think that Mary was so sick that she couldn't go to class.
Mary thanked Anna, who had taken her place.
Even though you don't agree with me on this, you are still my friend.
In these sentences, there is a main clause expressing the main idea, but the dependent clause provides important information that the main clause seems to ask for. Here you need to repeat a noun even if it may be the subject of both clauses.
You see also that the dependent clause can begin the sentence, but then we anticipate a main clause.
In German, the distinction is much more exciting than in English, because subordinate or dependent clauses have a different word order from the main clause! There is even a whole mood of the verb (like the passive or imperative moods) that is used in some kinds of dependent clauses. So they are much more distinctive, and the Germans pay more attention to the difference between compound and complex sentences.
As you can imagine, this is a challenge to learn, and we will be spending quite a bit of time time working on it.
German coordinating conjunctions are not too different from the corresponding words in English: and, or, but; meanwhile, then, since, consequently, thus, so, however, though, nevertheless. If you think about these words, though, you will see how important it is to notice and practice them. Conjunctions not only have the grammatical ability to join sentences but they also express specific relationships between the statements in the two sentences they connect. They may express a causal relationship between the two statements, or an exclusive one, or a supplementary one, and so on.
That means these conjunctions help us to communicate how our mind perceives the relation between two actions that it observed and analyzed. Our mind is a formidable tool. Not only is it capable of receiving data, but it also processes them according to its many abilities. And one of these abilities is to be aware of its own operations. Therefore, three cheers for our mind, but also three cheers for language because languages allow the mind to communicate the results of its activities to others.
Therefore, the conjunctions we are talking about in this chapter help of the mind as it tries to communicate its perceptions and ideas about what is going on the world.No wonder that we use these conjunctions constantly.