A question concerning the use of "as" as conjunction

Solution 1:

It is defined in Webster's as a conjunction, meaning "in accordance with what or the way in which." Specifically it is a subordinating conjunction, which creates the dependent clause "as you said." However, the sentence as a whole is not an independent clause--it is a matrix clause.

Unlike independent clauses, a matrix clause must include a dependent clause.

He said that we were late.

This can function as an independent clause [He said that we were late, and we were], but how then we can account for the use of a subordinating conjunction? In this case, the subordinating conjunction that signals the dependent clause we were late, but somehow He said does not seem to be an independent clause. Grammatically, He said can stand alone—it has a subject and a predicate—but in some way it does not seem to communicate anything. With a sentence that includes a truly independent clause and a dependent clause, we get information from both.

When the movie is over, we’ll go downtown. We will go downtown. When? When the movie is over.

But how can we split up He said that we were late? We really cannot. We were late has meaning by itself, but the point here is not that we were actually late; the point is that he said that we were late. It takes both together to get meaningful information. In this case, the dependent clause is said to be embedded in the matrix clause.