| Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993. |
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| SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS |
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| are also called subordinate conjunctions and are an essentially finite list of function words whose common members are after, although, as, as if, because, before, if, lest, since, so that, than, that, though, till, unless, until, and whether, plus inasmuch as, in order that, and (more recently, but in divided usage) like. (Some of them are also prepositions or adverbs.) Subordinating conjunctions link clauses of unequal grammatical weight in structures wherein a subordinate clause (introduced by a subordinating conjunction) modifies an independent clause or some element in it. Another way of describing the purpose of a subordinating conjunction is to say that it permits the inclusion of the clause it introduces within a larger clausal structure. | 1 |
| The term functional connectives is sometimes used to cover certain interrogative pronouns, relative pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs that do the same work as the subordinating conjunctions: they link subordinate clauses to or include them within main clauses or parts of them, although they also have another grammatical function to perform within their own dependent clause. In I know whom you mean, whom includes whom you mean in the main clause (I know plus the direct object), and the whom clause is direct object of that main clause. In its own clause, whom serves as direct object of the verb mean. | 2 |
| The relative and interrogative pronouns are also a finite list: that, what, whatever, whatsoever, which, whichever, whichsoever, who, whoever, whose, whosoever, whosesoever; the adverbs (sometimes called conjunctive adverbs) are how, when, whence, where, whither, why. | 3 |
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| | | The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Copyright © 1993 Columbia University Press. |
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