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The story was amusing, but nobody laughed.
But may join clauses contrasted in meaning.
The English system of noun forms is very simple, but the system of verb forms is most intricate.
The conjunctions while and whereas specialize in expressing contrastive relations.
Peter is an engineer, while his brother is a musician.
Some people prefer going to the theatre, whereas others will stay at home watching TV programmes.
Contrastive relation may be conveyed by asyndetic coordination.
Two or three scenes stood out vividly in his mind - all the rest became a blur.
Among coordinative connectives the particle only is frequently used to join clauses with adversative
connection, mainly in colloquial English.
There was an electric light, only Arthur had not switched it on.
§142. Disjunctive coordination implies a choice between two mutually exclusive alternatives.
The disjunctive conjunctions are or, either... or, the conjunctive adverbs are else (or else), otherwise.
You can join us at the station, or we can wait for you at home.
The correlative either emphasizes the exclusion of one of the alternatives.
Either listen to me, or I shall stop reading to you.
The clause introduced by or may express a restatement or correction of what is said in the first clause.
We were talking about a lot of things, or rather he was talking and I was listening.
Coordinate clauses joined by disjunctive connectors may contain an implied condition, real or unreal.
Hurry up, or you will be late. (real condition implied) (If you don’t hurry, you will be late.)
If the first part is negative, the implied condition is positive.
Don’t be late, otherwise you may not be let in. (If you are late, you may not be let in.)
John is busy, otherwise he would be here. (unreal condition implied) (If John weren’t busy, he would be
here.)
John is busy, or he would have come. (If John were not busy, he would have come.)
John was busy last night, otherwise he would have come. (If he hadn’t been busy, he would have come.)
§ 143. Causative-consecutive coordination joins clauses connected in such a way that
one of them contains a reason and the other - a consequence. The second clause may contain either the reason
or the result of the event conveyed by the previous clause. The only causative coordinating conjunction is for.
The days became longer, for it was now springtime.
A causative clause may be also joined asyndetically.
At first I thought that they were brother and sister, they were so much alike.