Лекции по теоретической грамматике английского языка для студентов

3. The Conjunction 
Semantic features 
Every conjunction has its own meaning, expressing some connection or 
other existing between phenomena in extralinguistic reality. 
When discussing prepositions, we noted that in a certain number of cases the 
use of a given preposition is predicted by the preceding word: thus the verb 
depend
can only be followed by the preposition 
on
(or 
upon
), the adjective 
characteristic
only by the preposition 
of
, etc. In such cases the preposition has no meaning of its 
own. Conjunctions in this respect are entirely different. Their meaning is 
independent of preceding words. 
Syntactic features 
Two levels are distinguished — that of phrases and that of sentences.
On the phrase level it must be said that conjunctions connect words and 
phrases. It is the so-called co-ordinating conjunctions that are found here, and only 
very rarely subordinating ones. 
On the sentence level it must be said that conjunctions connect clauses (of 
different kinds). Here we find both so-called co-ordinating and so-called 
subordinating conjunctions. 
In comparing prepositions with co-ordinating and subordinating 
conjunctions we cannot fail to notice that while prepositions have nothing in 
common with co-ordinating conjunctions, some prepositions are very close in 
meaning to subordinating conjunctions, and in some cases a preposition and a 
subordinating conjunction sound exactly the same. 
It should also be noted that the difference between prepositions and 
conjunctions is much less pronounced in Modern English than in Russian, where 
prepositions are closely connected with cases, while conjunctions have nothing 

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whatever to do with them. In English, with its almost complete absence of cases, 
this difference between prepositions and conjunctions is very much obliterated.