Can “neither” alone be used as a conjunction word?

[lagoo]

1. The authorities were not sympathetic to the students’ demands, neither would they tolerate any disruption.
2. He didn't remember, and neither did I.
As to Sentence 1 in Longman dictionary, “neither” is labeled as a conjunction word, while sentence 2 in Oxford dictionary, “neither” is labeled as an adverb.
Furthermore, I find the Oxford dictionary has no entry for “neither” functioning as a conjunction.
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/neither_2
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In sentence 1, if ‘neither’ is an adverb, I can add a conjunction word ‘and’ before it, i.e.

• The authorities were not sympathetic to the students’ demands, and neither would they tolerate any disruption.

Similarly, I can delete ‘and’ in sentence 2.
Is that acceptable?

 

[emsr2d2]

In both those sentences, I would use "nor", not "neither".

 

[jutfrank]

As written, with the comma in the place that it is, sentence 1 should really use the disjunctive conjunction nor, not neither. I really don't like neither being used as a conjunction like this, and so for precise writing I'd teach it as incorrect. Differently punctuated, however, neither could be preferable.

In sentence 2, neither should be used rather than nor, which would be incorrect, strictly speaking.

 

[PaulMatthews]

"Neither" is not a conjunction. It belongs to two parts of speech: (1) an adverb as in your examples, and (2) a determinative in noun phrase structure, as in "Neither team qualified", or as a marker in correlative coordination, as in "Neither Ed nor Kim attended the meeting".

Two immediately consecutive conjunctions are inadmissible in English, so the possibility of having the conjunction "and" before "neither" as in "and neither did I" proves that "neither" cannot be a conjunction, since "and" already performs that role.

As you suggest "and" is optional in your second example, since the adverb "neither" functions as a connective adjunct.

 

[Tarheel]

For sentence one I would write:

The authorities were not sympathetic to the students' demands, and they wouldn't tolerate any disruption.

Is that one your sentence?