Conjunction (definition)

Conjunction refers to two things (1) the act of linking items together and (2) the word that accomplishes such linking. In language, we can conjoin discrete elements in a sentence as long as they are constituents and are of the same syntactic category. For example, a verb can be conjoined with another verb, but not with a noun. In example (1), the sentence is ungrammatical because 'walks' is a verb whereas 'pencil' is a noun. These items are of different syntactic categories and therefore cannot be conjoined. On the other hand, when we have two verbs of the same category (example (2)), we have a perfectly grammatical sentence.

1) *Bill walks and pencil.

2) Bill walks and talks.

Conjunction (The linking particle)

In English you can list elements conjoined or coordinated using a comma and putting an "and" or "or" at the end:

• John, Bill, Susan, and Fred

In Gaelic, the conjunction must be put after each conjunct:

• Ian agus Uilleam agus Susan agus Fred.