Learn English – “as” used as a conjunction or pronoun

conjunctionspronounsword-differenceword-meaningword-usage

As I said before, you must leave.
You are happy as we all know.

Do as I say
He did not need to keep moving house, as his father had.

He is a foreigner, as is evident from his accent.

I checked the webster and longman. They says that "as" is used as relative pronouns in the first two sentences, which means "a fact/a thing that", while as conjunctions in the last two, which means "in the same way that".

I am confused by the meaning in these sentences. In my opinion, the third one can also be considered as pronoun, because it can be translated this way,

Do the thing which I told you to do.

And the second sentence can also be considered like this,

You are happy in the way we all know.

The other two sentences can also be misunderstood to me.
So what's wrong with my understanding.

Best Answer

You are not quite correct in your assessment, in the third sentence

Do as I say

means to

do something as I have told you to do it

not "do what I do", there is a very famous saying

Do as I say, not as I do.

which means the person is not doing something how they really want you to do it.

"Do as I say" is also different than

Do what I say

and the difference can be subtle. If you are told to

Be quite as a mouse!

Do what I say is "be quiet".
Do as I say is "be very, very quiet" since mice are very, very quiet.

You are happy as we all know.

only means

we all know you are happy

but we don't necessarily know how you are happy, further context would be necessary.

Your other two examples are simpler

As I said before, you must leave.
Like I told you before, you must leave.

He did not need to keep moving house, as his father had.
He did not need to keep moving house, like his father did.

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