Independent Clauses and Compound Sentences

Compound Sentences

by Gilalberto Zetina

​What is a compound sentence?

​A compound sentence has at least two independent clauses that have related ideas. The independent clauses can be joined by a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) or by a semicolon, as you can see in the compound sentence examples below.

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How are the independent clauses connected in a compound sentence?

​Structure of a compound sentence. We saw that a simple sentence has only one independent clause. In a compound sentence, there are two independent clauses and no depending clause. The independent clauses are connected to each other by a coordinating conjunction. If you feel that this explanation contains too many jargons,...

​When do you use a coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence?

​When the second independent clause is the result of the first clause, we use “AND” to connect the two clauses. It rained for days, and the fields were covered with green grass. We use the Coordinating conjunction,” nor”, when the first independent clause uses the negative words ‘neither’ or ‘never’

​Forming Compound sentence using Coordinating conjunctions

​Coordinating conjunctions are conjunctions used to link, words, phrases, clauses, or sentences of equal status. Here they are used to connect two independent clauses (also called coordinate clauses or main clauses.). There are only seven of them in English language. They are:

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​For

• And

• Nor

• But

• Or

• Yet

• So