In the English language, conjunctions come in three basic types: thecoordinating conjunctions, thesubordinating conjunctions, and thecorrelativeconjunctions.

1. Coordinating Conjunction

Among the three types of conjunctions, this is probably the most common one. The main function of coordinating conjunctions is to join words, phrases, and clauses together, which are usually grammatically equal. Aside from that, this type of conjunctions is placed in between the words or groups of words that it links together, and not at the beginning or at the end.

Examples:

Pizza and burgers are my favorite snacks.

In the sample sentence above, the underlined word serves as a coordinating conjunction that links two words together (pizza + burgers).

The treasure was hidden in the cave or in the underground lagoon.

The example above shows how coordinating conjunctions can join together two (or more) phrases. The coordinating conjunction “or” in the sentence above links “in the cave” and “in the underground lagoon.”

What those girls say and what they actually do are completely different.

In this sentence, you’ll see how the same coordinating conjunction ”and” from the first sample sentence can be used to link clauses together (“what those girls say” and “what they actually do”), instead of just single words.