Conjunctive advers and semi colons and commas

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Fyer

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Hi guys

There is an issue I'm slightly confused about: why are conjunctive adverbs sometimes used between a semi colon and the next clause? The fact that you are using a semi colon indicates the relation between the two so surely a conjunctive advers is not needed. I see why you would use one if there was no semi colon but as explained above is it necessary ?

Also, is it really necessary to use a comma after a conjunctive adverb in either situation or in general (see last part of sentence above)?
 

Rover_KE

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Click here to read about semicolons followed by conjunctive adverbs.
 

Fyer

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Click here to read about semicolons followed by conjunctive adverbs.

Thanks for the link!

Perhaps I didn't explain correctly: what I meant was why use a conjunctive adverb and a semi colon? If you are going to use a conjunctive adverb to join two clauses then just start a new sentence. I can see the use of both but using a semi colon with a conjunctive adverb just seems to make things a bit too "busy".


In regards to one of the examples on the link, the one that uses "nevertheless" to reference his determination, to be honest I'm not sure if I would use any commas at all. If I was to use one it would be after nevertheless but it seems there is no need to use it before...

Please correct me if I'm wrong.
 

MikeNewYork

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Conjunctive adverbs cannot connect two clauses with a comma. Either a semicolon or a period/full stop is needed. In my opinion, a semicolon implies a more direct connection between two clauses than does a period/full stop. But either method works.
 
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