Coordination

Both coordination and subordination involve the linking of units, but in coordination the units are constituents of the same level, whereas in subordination they are on different levels.

An important difference between coordination and subordination is that only in the former can the order of the two linked linguistic units be changed without a consequent change in the semantic relationships of the units. For example:

Mary studies at a university 1/ and John works at a factory. 2/

John works at a factory 1/ and Mary studies at a university. 2/

!!! BUT: He died 1/ and he was buried in a cemetery. 2/

is different from:

He was buried in a cemetery 1/ and he died. 2/

(The explanation in the last example is that if a cause-result relationship is implicit, the order cannot be changed without changing the relationship between the cause and the result and the overall meaning).

The term coordination is used by some grammarians for both syndetic coordination (when explicit indicators of coordination are present) and asyndetic coordination (when the relationship of coordination is not marked overtly).

Syndetic coordination is realised by means of coordinators / conjoiners:

1. conjunctions:

- simple : and, or, but

- correlative: either or , not only but also , neither nor , nor nor , no sooner than , etc.

2. conjunctive adverbs / conjuncts: also, indeed, still, yet, (or) else, etc.