Traditional lists of coordinating conjunctions included "for" (hence the "F" in the acronym "FANBOYS" for remembering the list of coordinating conjunctions); but it seems to me that the use of "for" as a coordinating conjunction in English has largely been succeeded by the use of "because." I find I'm not sure here what the distinction is between a coordinating conjunction and a subordinating conjunction. Help? Dr. Seth Katz Assistant Professor Department of English Bradley University ________________________________ From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of T. J. Ray Sent: Wed 4/13/2011 6:16 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Punctuation Question I believe you're right in thinking he feels this is a coordinate conjunction. My understanding is that "because" clauses are dependent and hence should not be preceded with a comma. I just wanted a number of opinions before I bring it to the committee's attention, folks who evidently don't see a problem with it as no one had marked any of these before I saw the MSS. Thanks for your time. On Wednesday 04/13/2011 at 5:43 am, "Dixon, Jack" wrote: Focusing on the obvious, I suspect the writer believes that "because" functions as a coordinating conjunction rather than a subordinating. Does the student punctuate most subordinating clauses that follow the independent clause this way, or do he make this mistake with "because" only? I seem to remember that Martha Kolln in _Rhetorical Grammar_ addresses the few instances when terminal subord. clauses are set off with commas. ________________________________________ From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of T. J. Ray [[log in to unmask]] Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 8:10 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Punctuation Question I have a doctoral student who produces sentences like the following: "This quatrain cannot be read in isolation at all, because the syntax is inherent and incomplete on its own." My question is not a search for whatever he meant to say but is about his punctuation: the comma. Comments are welcome. T. J. To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/