subordinator

plural subordinators

1. grammarAny of a lexical class of words that join clauses at a subordinate syntactic level (subordinate clauses).

   Near-synonym: subordinating conjunction

   2 more examples

   Subordinators / English has a tiny set of essentially meaningless words that mark the beginnings of certain subordinate clauses (that is, clauses contained inside larger clauses). I’ll call these words subordinators (some linguists call them “complementizers,” and traditional grammars call them “subordinating conjunctions” and wrongly throw a whole bunch of prepositions in with them). I’ll discuss just three items that definitely have to be called subordinators.

   2024, Geoffrey K. Pullum, The Truth About English Grammar, Polity Press, →ISBN, pages 85-86

   The verbs said, thought, and believed all can take a whole embedded sentence as their argument. The embedded clause is initiated with the word that, which is referred to as a subordinator or complementizer. I notate this category as Comp (short for complementizer). A verb like said or believed takes a subordinator following it; and a subordinator takes a tensed verb following it.

   2025, Edward A. F. Gibson, “Dependency Grammar” (chapter 3), in Syntax: A Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 81

   Synonyms: complementizer, subordinating conjunction

2. One who subordinates, or reduces the status of, another person.

   […] the possibility of women's collusion with their subordinators, e.g. of their acceptance of subordinate status […]

   1986, South African Journal of Philosophy, volumes 5-7, page 112