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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 .
The definition may be extended to idiomatic phrases that behave as a unit and perform the same function, e.g. "as well as", "provided that". A simple literary example of a conjunction is "the truth of nature, and the power of giving interest" (Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Biographia Literaria). [3]
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 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.
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.
Some words can be used both as adpositions and as subordinating conjunctions: (preposition) before/after/since the end of the summer (conjunction) before/after/since the summer ended (preposition) It looks like another rainy day (conjunction) It looks like it's going to rain again today
Traditional grammar books commonly treat if, often understood as a single word encompassing both this subordinator and the homonymous preposition, as a "subordinating conjunction", a category covering a broad range of clause-connecting words. [1]: 599–600, 738, 1011–1014
An example of a correlative conjunction can be seen in: Not only did I finish my homework, but I also helped my sibling. Subordinators make relations between clauses, making the clause in which they appear into a subordinate clause. [35] Some common subordinators in English are: conjunctions of time, including after, before, since, until, when ...