[EDLING:583] Spanish question

[sicola at DOLPHIN.UPENN.EDU]

(Apologies for multiple posts)

In teaching English writing to international students, we teach that a
sentence like:
"I am a lawyer(,) it is a good job."
is a "run-on" sentence (with or without the comma).
Reason = because two independent clauses/ simple sentences like these two
halves need to be connected with some type of coordinating conjunction, or
separated by a semi-colon or other sentence-final punctuation.  Not the most
eloquent explanation, but you get the picture.

Over the years, I have had several (otherwise highly educated) Spanish-
speakers from various countries tell me that this construction is acceptable
in Spanish. I studied Spanish for many years and was never told this, although
perhaps because the English rules for connection/separation are also
acceptable in Spanish, they transferred into my Spanish writing w/o a problem
and the language difference just went undetected.

So I ask: in formal written Spanish (or other languages, for that matter), is
this "run-on" construction acceptable? Or has it just become so pervasive that
it's never questioned and erroneously considered to be "standard"?  We
certainly do that in English with sentence *fragments* such as "And I agreed."
(as well as in the previous question I just started with "Or".)In speech it's
different obvously, but in a grammar/writing class, technically, this would
get marked "incorrect," even though it's visible in just about every piece of
written composition on the market, from newspaper articles to textbooks, etc.

What's the scoop?

Thanks,
Laura


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