Collins Cobuild

Unit 102
Cohesion
Main points
You can use pronouns and determiners to refer back to something
that has already been mentioned.
You use coordinating conjunctions to link clauses.
1
 When  you  speak  or  write,  you  usually  need  to  make  some
connection  with  other  things  that  you  are  saying  or  writing.  The
most common way of doing this is by referring back to something
that has already been mentioned.
2
One way of referring back to something is to use a personal pronoun
such as ‘she’, ‘it’, or ‘them’, or a possessive pronoun such as ‘mine’
or ‘hers’.
My father is fat. He weighs over fifteen stone.
Mary came in. She was a good-looking woman.
‘Have you been to London ?’ – ‘Yes, it was very crowded.’
‘Have you heard of David Lodge ?’ – ‘Yes, I’ve just read a novel of his.’
‘Would you mind moving your car, please?’ – ‘It’s not mine.’
3
You can also use a specific determiner such as ‘the’ or ‘his’ in front
of a noun to refer back to something.
A man and a woman were walking up the hill.

---

The man wore shorts, a T-shirt, and basketball sneakers.
The woman wore a print dress.
‘Thanks,’said Brody. He put the telephone down, turned out the light in his
office, and walked out to his car.
4
The demonstratives ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’ and ‘those’ are also used to
refer back to a thing or fact that has just been mentioned.
In 1973 he went on a caravan holiday. At the beginning of this holiday he
began to experience pain in his chest.
There’s a lot of material there. You can use some of that.
5
The following general determiners can also be used to refer back to
something:
another both each either every neither
other
Five officials were sacked.
Another four were arrested. There are more than two hundred and fifty
species of shark, and every one is different.
6
Another common way of making connections in spoken or written
English is by using one of the following coordinating conjunctions:
and but nor or so then
yet
Anna had to go into town and she wanted to go to Bride Street.
I asked if I could borrow her bicycle but she refused.
He was only a boy then, yet he was not afraid.
You can use a coordinating conjunction to link clauses that have the
same subject. When you link clauses which have the same subject,
you do not always need to repeat the subject in the second clause.

---

She was born in Budapest and raised in Manhattan.
He didn’t yell or scream.
When she saw Morris she went pale, then blushed.
7
Most subordinating conjunctions can also be used to link sentences
together, rather than to link a subordinate clause with a main clause
in the same sentence.
‘When will you do it?’ – ‘When I get time.’
‘Can I borrow your car?’ – ‘So long as you drive carefully.’
We send that by airmail. Therefore, it’s away on Thursday and our client
gets it on Monday.
8
When people are speaking or writing, they often use words that refer
back to similar words, or words that refer back to a whole sentence
or paragraph.
Everything was quiet. Everywhere there was the silence of the winter night.
‘What are you going to do?’ – ‘That’s a good question.’

---