Conjunctive adverbs are this odd kind of
hybrid creature between a conjunction
and an adverb. They're not a separate
part of speech, so we have eight parts of
speech and conjunctive adverbs
are typically not seen as one of those
eight. But they are kind of unique in a
way, and so we do want to single them out
for some attention here. So conjunctive
adverbs--there are quite a few
examples of these--and what they do is
that they are similar to a conjunction
in that they tie together clauses, so
they are able to bring clauses together
into some kind of unity, especially
independent clauses. And often these
independent clauses are separate
sentences. So we we tend to use
conjunctive adverbs close to the
beginning of a major clause, which then
is often connected to a separate
sentence that came before. They're
similar to adverbs in the sense that you
can move them around. So adverbs can be moved
around in the sentence,
whereas conjunctions cannot--they have to
stay in their place.
So if you think about these two things
then, that they can connect clauses and
you can move them around, then you get
the gist of what conjunctive
adverbs are doing. Now I've listed quite
a few of them here on the screen and
I've sort of organized them by what
they're doing.
Each of them is connecting clauses but
they sort of have these patterns to
them. So if you look at the first
category here, adding information, that's
a bit like saying "and." So if you think of
these conjunctions as saying "and," we
have "also," "finally," and so on. They're
kind of suggesting that there's more
information to come.
The second category is a little bit like
saying "so." "So then we also get this" -- and
that's that cause and effect
relationship.
The third category is similar to saying
"but." And it's kind of interesting that a
lot of these are somewhat similar to
coordinating conjunctions -- "and," "so," and "but"
are all coordinating conjunctions, and
you can think of these
conjunctions [conjunctive adverbs] as kind of more
formal, more bigger ways of doing
the same thing. Then we have changing
direction, and this is a bit like saying
"yet." So we've seen a bunch of stuff, yet
we're going to go in a different
direction.
Then we have similarity, and we can
express this as "also." We also get this.
And emphasis ... we can say, "yep, we've seen this
and we agree with that," and let's
emphasize it. So that's a little bit more
colloquial, but maybe that gets the point
across. These are some
common examples then of conjunctive
adverbs, and as we go on here we'll look
at a couple of examples of how you can
use them.
Let's take a closer look at an example
of how a conjunctive adverb is being
used in a sentence. And as we'll see in a
second,
there's actually a problem with this
usage, especially in terms of the
punctuation.
So there are two independent
clauses that this conjunctive adverb is
trying to join. The first one starts with
"a tanker ship" as the subject, and "left" is
the verb, and there's a direct object
here as well, which is "the Rotterdam
harbor." [The] second clause has a bunch of
introductory information, and then we get
to our subject, "Colonel Ralph Fitzroy."
"Inspected" is the verb, and "his M24 sniper
rifle" is the direct object.
We have two clauses then,
and "meanwhile" is trying to do the work
of connecting them. But the rule that you
want to remember is that this kind of
conjunction should not come in the
middle of two independent clauses. So
independent clause (IC) conjunctive adverb (c.a.) --
let's just abbreviate it like that. And
independent clause, that's not the best
way to do this. What we want to do is we
want to stick a period before our
conjunctive adverb, or we could stick a
semicolon--that's another option as well.
But the idea is that this conjunctive
adverb is a kind of heavyweight
conjunction--it doesn't want to just
function like "but" or "so," which can
connect two independent clauses in the
middle of a sentence; it wants to be by
itself. It's kind of like
saying, "we're starting something quite
new here, and we need a good strong break,"
so we need a period or a semicolon. And,
as you can see then, we can fix it quite
easily. We can put that period there and
capitalize
"meanwhile," and then our problem is fixed.
You want to know about this rule because
it's one that people often
don't follow. And you'll see it
especially with conjunctive adverbs like
"however," which are often mistakenly used
in the middle of a sentence, or "moreover" ...
even ones like "therefore." So be very
careful with this because if you can
avoid this grammatical issue, then I
think your writing will definitely
benefit.
Let's finish this explanation of
conjunctive adverbs by just paying a bit
more attention to how we punctuate
these conjunctive adverbs. As you can see
from these examples, a conjunctive adverb
often comes at the beginning of a
sentence, so that's no problem. Then we
just stick a comma after it typically and
we keep going.
It can also come a little bit later in
the sentence. So it can come after a
semi-colon, let's say, and again we have
this comma afterwards. But I said before
that the conjunctive adverb can be moved
around a little bit in the sentence, and
that's definitely true. So if you look at
this example here, we could say, "I don't
really like coffee;
I do, however, (stick it in there) enjoy a
mocha tort." If you were to move it over
there then you would set it off with
commas typically, so you'd say, "I do,
however, enjoy a
mocha tort." So your most common ways of
punctuating a conjunctive adverb is to
either stick at the beginning of a
sentence followed up with a comma, stick
it after a semi colon followed up with a
comma, or have it a little bit later in
the clause and have it surrounded by
commas. I should mention one thing though--
you don't always have to put the commas
around the conjunctive adverb. So if you
feel that it runs quite smoothly to say,
"I do however enjoy a mocha torte," with no
commas,
that's quite alright too. So those are
your options for punctuating conjunctive
adverbs.