The notion of nexus has several meanings. In this case we are interested in its use in the field of grammar , where it allows us to refer to the morpheme or the word that links sentences or phrases through its syntactic function.
Links, therefore, serve to unite or link . According to their characteristics , they are called in different ways.
In the case of the subordinating link , it is one that subordinates one proposition to another , placing it at a lower level in terms of its importance. The main clause is the one that presents the most relevant information , while the other is called the subordinate clause .
The subordination established with the link, on the other hand, can be an adverbial subordination , an adjective subordination or a substantive subordination . The link itself, meanwhile, can be a pronoun , an adverb, a conjunction or a conjunctive phrase.
Let's look at an example : "The young woman left when it was already night." In this case, "The young woman left" is the main clause, "when" is the subordinating link and "it was already night" is the subordinate clause. The subordinating link in the example is a temporal adverb ( "when" ) that enables the subordination of the second sentence to the first.
"Solve it as you can" is another example that includes a subordinating link. "How" is the adverb so that it links the other two words that make up the expression: "Solve it" and "you can." The second part ( "you can" ) is subordinate to the first ( "solvealo" ), with the adverb "como" functioning as a link.
As we can see, the subordinate clause does not provide us with enough information to make sense , but rather depends on the main clause so that we know what has happened or what is being talked about. If they tell us "as you can" we will not know what to do, we lack a context; On the other hand, it is enough for them to tell us to "solve it" for us to get to work.
Returning to the bases of subordinating links, we can distinguish more than one class, depending on the criterion we use. We can carry out the largest classification taking into account the type of word that is used as a link: prepositions ( a, before, under, fits , etc.); subordinating conjunctions ( that, if, although, then , etc.).
But the classification can be sharpened to give rise to much more defined groups. For example, we can start with the relative pronouns , where we have the following: who, what, which, whose, the one, how much, how and where , some of them with their variants of gender and number (for example: "which », «those who», etc.). In this list we can also find the word according to , but with a lower frequency. Examples: The house you see in the photo is mine ; The area where I found him was very noisy .
Regarding conjunctions , the list is more extensive and complex. The most common is that , which in this case does not act as a relative pronoun, that is, it cannot be replaced by others mentioned in the previous paragraph. Let's see below some examples of subordinate clauses with this conjunction:
* substantive or completive: He told me that he was very tired;
* causal: Stay, it 's better at home;
* end: Come so I can show you the document;
* comparative: This computer is more efficient than the other;
* consecutive: The temperature dropped so much that the trees were covered in frost;
* conditional: If something comes up, let me know an hour in advance..
Other conjunctions used as subordinating links are listed below, highlighted in their respective examples: I don't know if I will be able to travel tomorrow , Even if they offer me another discount, I will unsubscribe , Then , the situation began to improve .