Link Words

An approximate guide to their meaning and use

CONJUNCTIONS
ADVERBIAL CONNECTORS PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
GENERAL MEANING COORDINATING SUBORDINATING

NEUTRAL FORMAL NEUTRAL FORMAL NEUTRAL FORMAL NEUTRAL FORMAL

in addition
Moreover
also
ADDITION and Furthermore
... too
Also
Besides

or nor
(or) else
either ... if ... as well
ALTERNATIVES
or whether Alternatively
neither ...
nor

Yet
but
Surprising Still However
not only ... yet
facts Even so Nevertheless
but also
all the same
CONTRAST

Opposite On the other hand

while whereas In contrast in spite of despite
facts On the contrary

Though though
CONCESSION Yet, Even though Although even
Even if so

Therefore
so (and) so Consequently
RESULTS
such a ... that As a result Thus
Accordingly

Because of Due to
REASON Because since
Thanks to Owing to
Cause and effect As for
(positive) On account of

so that
so as to
PURPOSE for fear that
in order that
in order to
 If
unless
on condition that
CONDITION so/as long as
given that
Provided that
seeing that

when(ever)
SAME TIME while Meanwhile
now (that)

Before
EARLIER TIME
until

Soon
after
LATER TIME Then
since
After(wards)

once
JUST AFTER immediately that whereupon
as soon as

The best way to really understand the meaning of these words is to read a lot and develop a feeling for how they are used in newspaper and academic articles. You could
also consult one of these concordancers which will give you many real life examples of each as used in contemporary English.

Concordancer based on Voice of America's special English

Complete sentences given. The examples are easier than those of the other concordancers.

British National Corpus Concordancer

Based on several large corpora of modern spoken and written British English. It shows complete sentences.