Conjunctions are separators and connectors. They sustain and control either the pace of events or the flow of ideas.

With their presence or absence, they can define the quality of readers' involvement, either as followers of the writer's explicit connections or as active participants drawing inferences from the writer's implicit ones.

A. Parataxis vs. Hypotaxis

1) Parataxis: Clauses are placed beside each other without using a conjunction; the connection between clauses is implicit.

• e.g., He is anxious; he is threatened from every side. (Walker Perey, The Moviegoer )

2) Hypotaxis: The dependent clause is subordinated to the independent clause; the connection between clauses is explicit;

• e.g., He is anxious because he is threatened from every side. (Walker Perey, The Moviegoer)

* Watch this video to learn more about parataxis and hypotaxis

Note: Common errors in writing: comma splices and run-on sentences (p. 147-149)

B. Polysyndeton vs. Asyndeton

1) Polysyndeton: purposeful overuse of conjunctions (as an emphatic device)

Tom, Dick, and Harry (normal)

• a) Tom and Dick and Harry

• b) "He is selfish and cold and unreliable and self-serving."

2) Asyndeton: purposeful underuse of conjunctions (to speed up the pace)

• a) They dove, splashed, floated, splashed, swam, snorted.

— James T. Farrell, Young Longigan

Purpose: to suggest that they have done more than what is listed here.

• b) The pilgrim's way is the way of metaphor, and all meaning must be sought in the dynamic tension of opposites that is its way of journeying: yes and no, life and death, light and dark, masculine and feminine, divine and human.

— (https://dante.georgetown.edu/orientation/)

Purpose: to suggest that this list of dichotomy is inexhaustible.

3) Polysyndeton and asyndeton in one sentence:

• c) Thus it must forever walk the way of metaphor, the way of both/and, same and different, known and unknown, which is inscribed on its mind and heart and lips as the mark of its judgment.

— (https://dante.georgetown.edu/orientation/)

*Watch this video to learn more about polysyndeton and asyndeton.