Conjunctions Page 3

False Coordination

CONJUNCTIONS PAGE 3/3

Coordinators are sometimes used without performing any strictly coordinating role:

I'll come when I'm good and ready

Here, the adjectives good and ready are not really being coordinated with each other. If they were, the sentence would mean something like:

I'll come [when I'm good] and [when I'm ready]

Clearly, this is not the meaning which good and ready conveys. Instead, good and intensifies the meaning of ready. We might rephrase the sentence as

I'll come when I'm completely ready.

Good and ready is an example of FALSE COORDINATION -- using a coordinator without any coordinating role. It is sometimes called PSEUDO-COORDINATION.

False coordination can also be found in informal expressions using try and:

Please try and come early

I'll try and ring you from the office

Here, too, no real coordination is taking place. The first sentence, for instance, does not mean Please try, and please come early. Instead, it is semantically equivalent to Please try to come early.

In informal spoken English, and and but are often used as false coordinators, without any real coordinating role. The following extract from a conversation illustrates this:

Speaker A: Well he told me it's this super high-flying computer software stuff. I'm sure it's the old job he used to have cleaning them

Speaker B: But it went off okay last night then did it? Did you have a good turnout? [S1A-005-95ff]

Here, the word but used by Speaker B does not coordinate any conjoins. Instead, it initiates her utterance, and introduces a completely new topic.

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