Writing Craft: Conjunctions, Prepositions, and Interjections

Greetings!

Today on the blog we are going to look at a quick explanation of conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections as it relates to grammar and language use.

Conjunctions

“Conjunction Junction, what’s your function?” – School House Rock

Conjunctions are the great connectors. They help us with everything from adding details, to joining simple sentences, to countering our own motives and the motives of others (but, but, but).

As Utah University states: “Conjunctions connect elements of a sentence or text and show how they relate to each other.”

Examples of conjunctions vary and we can take a deeper look at conjunctions on another day, but remember that they come in any shapes and sizes.

For example, there are coordinating conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so), correlative conjunctions (neither/nor, whether/or, either/or), and subordinating conjunctions (after, although, because, if, who, why, etc.).

Prepositions

Prepositions can be tricky, but there really are just a few major functions for them–even though they come up a lot in writing–and have the ability to tell us time and place and the relationship between parts of a sentence.

Perdue states that prepositions “indicate the start of a prepositional phrase.” Additionally, prepositions can show the relationship between two things. Some sources state that prepositions act as the “glue” that keeps a sentence together.

As such, words like “on,” “at,” and “in” describe this timeliness. Meanwhile, words like “inside,” “on,” “and “over,” “above,” and “at” are used to place an object somewhere.

Interjections

Interjections are our WOW words. What this means is that anything exclamatory that stand on their own–typically away from the nearby clause. These words have “no grammatical function in the construction of a sentence” unless you consider “mild interjections” like “well.”

Examples include “Oh!” “Wow!” and “My god!”

Works Cited

“Conjunctions.” Utah University. Web. https://www.uvu.edu/writingcenter/docs/handouts/grammar-usage/conjunctions.pdf

“Interjections.” Butte College. Web. https://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/grammar/interjections.html

“Interjections.” Gallaudet University. Web. https://gallaudet.edu/student-success/tutorial-center/english-center/grammar-and-vocabulary/conjunctions-and-interjections/

“Prepositions.” Perdue University. Web. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/grammar/prepositions/index.html

“Prepositions.” Touro University Writing Center. Web. https://www.touro.edu/departments/writing-center/tutorials/prepositions/


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