Fwd: commas and restrictive clauses

Arnold M. Zwicky zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU
Sat Aug 4 16:27:50 UTC 2007


meant for the whole list...

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Date: August 4, 2007 9:13:25 AM PDT
> To: Laurence Urdang <urdang at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: commas and restrictive clauses
>
>
> On Aug 3, 2007, at 12:17 PM, Laurence Urdang wrote:
>
>> Zwicky:
>> a restrictive relative
>> ("(that) the
>> angels did say") set off by commas, something we
>> (mostly) don't do
>> any more.
>
>> They do it all the time in British writing.
>
> commas around restrictive relatives occur in american as well as
> british writing, but not with great frequency (at least in writing
> for publication by serious writers).  most of the handbooks suggest
> that the practice is more common in british writing than in
> american, and that's the impression of almost every linguist who's
> collected some data.  i assume there's some actual research on brit-
> am differences (holding things like genre, style, register, etc.
> constant), but i'm working at home today and don't have easy access
> to my sources.
>
> when you look at student writing in the u.s., you see a fair number
> of errors involving commas in relative clauses.  in a 1988 study by
> connors & lunsford, a careful count of errors in 300 student papers
> found 36 types of errors with at least 4 occurrences in the 300
> papers.  error #10 was "no comma in non-restrictive phrase" (75
> occurrences) and error #12 was "unnecessary comma with restrictive
> clause" (50 occurrences).  10 of the top 36 errors involved commas,
> in fact.
>
> a 2007 follow-up study by lunsford & lunsford (now in press) found
> pretty much the same situation with respect to commas (other things
> have changed, in interesting ways, but the comma errors have
> scarcely changed in 20 years, and in fact look much the same in
> other studies of u.s. student writing earlier in the 20th century).
>
>> They put commas everywhere,
>> especially separating subjects from their verbs and verbs from
>> their objects...
>
> this is the sort of global generalization that linguists should
> resist.  you're maintaining that british writers are *generally*
> fond of commas, and you're lumping together all sorts of different
> phenomena.  i suspect that your impressions of general british-
> american differences here would not be supported by actual
> research.  certainly, the handbooks make no such observation about
> commas separating subject and predicate or commas separating verb
> and object.  (both on the connors & lunsford u.s. student list, but
> not very high on it: #28, frequency of 14, and #32, frequency of 6,
> respectively.)
>
> MWDEU does note that the comma between subject and predicate "is an
> old convention that has fallen into disuse and disfavor.  It was
> common in the 18th century..." (with examples from distinguished
> writers, one british, one american)  "This comma is now universally
> frowned on and tends to be found only as a vice of comic-strip
> writers, advertisers, and others who are not on their guard."
>
> as i say here again and again, impressions (even the impressions of
> people sensitive to language use) about who uses which variants,
> for how long, how often, on what occasions, and for what purposes
> are not at all reliable; our judgments about such things are
> affected by a variety of factors that distort them significantly.
>
> it's also true that elements that serve many functions almost never
> vary across all the functions in the same way.  people aren't
> *generally* fond of the preposition "of", or infinitivals, or
> commas; instead, their preferences are different in different
> contexts.  (in other words, variation is structurally, as well as
> socially, local in character.)
>
>> ... But Brit punctuation has changed since about 1900, an
>> observation that eluded Lynne Truss: before that, it was more in
>> keeping with our present practice.  For instance, much late 19th-
>> century text shows a period or comma preceding a closing quotation
>> mark, while today it almost always follows.  American typographers
>> decided years ago that such practice was unaesthetic, which is why
>> periods and commas are now always inside.
>
> this is yet another topic, concerning minute details of what are in
> fact arbitrary conventions about punctuation.  (MWDEU just refuses
> to take these on.)  virtually nothing hangs on punc-quot vs. quot-
> punc order, or on the presence or absence of the serial comma
> (though reasoned arguments have been made for quot-punc and the
> serial comma, and these are my practices).  yet style sheets,
> editors, and writing teachers are passionate in their insistence on
> one practice or another (different practices in different places).
>
> in any case, i don't see any relationship between preferences in
> these practices (which vary from place to place and time to time)
> and any other variations in the use of commas.
>
> arnold
>
>
>
>

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