Conjuncts

Conjuncts are the units that participate in coordination in grammar, or, in logic, the components of a conjunction. In linguistics, a conjunct is a constituent that is joined to another by a coordinating conjunction such as and, or, or but. The resulting structure is a coordinated phrase or clause, and each conjunct may be a noun phrase, verb phrase, or a full clause. Conjuncts typically share syntactic category and may display parallelism in features like case, number, or tense. Languages differ in how strictly they enforce parallel structure, how many conjuncts can occur, and how punctuation and prosody mark the grouping.

In logic and related fields, a conjunction P ∧ Q has two conjuncts: P and Q. The truth value of the conjunction depends on the values of all its conjuncts. This usage is parallel to the linguistic idea of units joined by a conjunction, but the domain is formal semantics and mathematical logic rather than natural language syntax.

A second sense arises in the orthography of many Indic scripts, where conjuncts refer to ligatures that form when two or more consonants occur together without an intervening vowel. These conjunct consonants represent consonant clusters and are written as a single unit, altering both appearance and pronunciation. Examples include Devanagari spellings like क्ष (kṣ) or त्र (tr).

See also: conjunction, disjunction, coordination, conjunctive adverb, conjunct consonant ligatures.