Definition: One of the parts of speech, a type of word that is used to connect words or groups of words. Traditionally, conjunctions are used to connect words within a sentence. However, modern usage in both Spanish and English is accepting of allowing conjunctions to be used at the beginning of a sentence to join it with a previous sentence.
In traditional English grammar, the types of conjunctions are coordinating conjunctions (which connect two words, sentences or phrases of equal grammatical status), subordinating conjunctions (which subordinate a word or phrase to another) and correlative conjunctions (which come in pairs).
Spanish grammarians often classify conjunctions differently, referring to conjunciones aditivas (additive conjunctions such as "and" or y), conjunciones adversativas (contrastive conjunctions such as "but" or pero and "nevertheless" or sin embargo), conjunciones causales (causal conjunctions such as "because" or porque), and conjunciones temporales (temporal conjunctions such as "then" or entonces).
Also Known As: conjunción in Spanish
Examples: Boldface words in this sentence are conjunctions: María and Pedro ate fruits or vegetables, but they are still hungry. (María y Pedro comieron frutas o verduras, pero siguen teniendo hambre.)
