English Grammar Understanding the Basics

As we mentioned in Lesson 46, a sentence can contain more than one sentence within it, for example:

1. Jane put the glass vase on the table and her mother picked it up.

This is an example of a compound sentence. It actually contains two sentences. The first is: Jane put the glass vase on the table. The second is: Her mother picked it up. Since a sentence within a sentence is called a clause, we can also say that sentence 1 contains two clauses. Just as a simple sentence must contain at least a subject and a verb phrase, each of the sentences (clauses) within a compound sentence must contain its own subject and verb phrase.

Recall from Lesson 18 that conjunctions, like and, or, and but, join things. In fact, the two sentences with in sentence 1 are joined by the conjunction and. Recall also that there are two kinds of conjunctions, coordinating and subordinating. The sentences in a compound sentence are joined together by a coordinating conjunction. As we discussed in Lesson 18, there are three common coordinating conjunctions; they are and, or, and but. Four less common ones are for, so, yet, and nor. (Remember FANBOYS, which contains the first letter of each.)