Can someone tell me whether the conjunction and can be used to conjoin the words and phrases in these sentences?
At first glance, I think it cannot but I do not know how to explain why. Thank you.
a. I bought an and the book.
b. I want this and that book.
c. This is his and her room.
a. I bought an and the book.
I think you meant to say I bought a and the book, distinguishing between two separate books. But both I bought an and the book and I bought a and the book are incorrect. You cannot use a conjunction between articles of two separate nouns.
b. I want this and that book.
I think you can say this, yes, but it is very awkward. It would be better to say I want this book and that book.
c. This is his and her room.
Yes, this is OK, technically. If there is a girl and a boy who share a bedroom, you can say this. It would be more common to say, simply, This is their room.
Let's see...
a. I bought an and the book.
This is certainly not making sense at all... spoken or written. Even if you add a word starting with a vowel after an, the second clause of the sentence will have to be tweaked if 'the' book has not been talked about in any of the previous sentence(s). Then it will have to be 'a' book, otherwise 'the' book is fine.
b. I want this and that book.
'I want this book and that book' is the correct way of saying or writing it, if 'this' refers to a book in your sentence. If 'this' is a thing and you're speaking, then you could be pointing to 'this' and then the sentence would be okay.
c. This is his and her room.
Agree with Ringo on this. Again, it's okay if this sentence is spoken but in written English, 'their' is the pronoun to be used.
Hope this helps :)
