CHAPTER XIX
THE CONJUNCTION IN SOME OF ITS USES
In our study of complex and compound sentences we have noted the office of conjunctions, both subordinating and coördinating, so far as they join propositions. But this is by no means their sole office nor their most common one.
The Coördinating Conjunction.—The abridgment of propositions has been carried so far that we find the coördinating conjunctions, and, or, but, joining words or phrases just as often as propositions, for example, “The intimacy between man and nature began with the birth of man on the earth, and becomes each century more intelligent and far-reaching.” The first and joins the two nouns man and nature, the second the two predicates whose base-words are the verbs began and becomes, the third the two adjective complements more intelligent and more far-reaching.
There is nothing at all peculiar or difficult in this use of the conjunction, for we naturally expect it to join any two like elements, provided they have the same office in the sentence. Occasionally, however, we find it joining unlike elements; for example, “St. Edmund punishes terribly yet with mercy.”—Carlyle. Here yet joins two modifiers of the verb punishes, but one is an adverb, the other a prepositional phrase.
A common substitute for and when it joins words or phrases is as well as, the whole group of words having the value of one conjunction; as, “Truth needs the wisdom of the serpent as well as the simplicity of the dove.”—Helps. This conjunction has a peculiar force. By its aid the sentence just quoted tells us not that truth needs two qualities, which the conjunction and would imply, but rather that, while everybody grants that truth needs the simplicity of the dove, it is the author’s opinion that she needs, too, the wisdom of the serpent. It is wonderful that the substitution of this little phrase as well as for and can make a sentence so different in meaning.
A group of words similar in office to as well as, but not so often used, is no less than; as, “The first lesson of literature, no less than of life, is the learning how to burn your own smoke.”—Lowell.
Besides joining words, phrases, or propositions as the elements of one sentence, the coördinating conjunction, especially and or but, is often found at the beginning of an entirely new sentence, where its function is to show the relation in thought between the new sentence and the one preceding. In such a position its office is not grammatical but logical; for example, “But month after month only showed the king the uselessness of further resistance.”—J. R. Green. This conjunction is sometimes reinforced by an adverb; thus, “And again, Drake’s cannon would not have roared so loudly and so widely without seamen already trained in heart and hand to work his ships and level his artillery.”—Froude.
The Subordinating Conjunction.—Owing to abridgment we find many sentences constructed like the following,—
“Then safe, though fluttered and amazed,