[EDLING:585] RE: Spanish question

[Miriam E Ebsworth]

I've also found that the famous comma splice is perfectly fine in
British English but can get you into big trouble in the good old USA.
My Anglo-Welsh spouse says we're 2 people separated by a common
language.
Yup.
Miriam

Miriam Eisenstein Ebsworth, Ph.D.
<MEE1 at nyu.edu>
Director of Doctoral Programs in Multilingual Multicultural Studies
New York University,635 East Building
239 Greene St., New York, NY 10003


----- Original Message -----
From: Federica Barbieri <Federica.Barbieri at NAU.EDU>
Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 4:25 pm
Subject: [EDLING:584] RE: Spanish question

> I am a native speaker of Italian, and as far as I know, in
> Italian, as in
> Spanish, it is fine to connect two independant clauses with a
> comma. I was
> never taught that is is wrong and I have seen that many times in
> formal
> written Italian (e.g., editorials and newspaper articles in major
> newspapers).
> In fact I was surprised to see it marked as an error when I firts
> got here in
> the States. My impression is that British English is more flexible
> than
> American English in this respect (run-ons, etc.). I would guess
> that
> punctuation is not universal and is culture-dependant...
>
> Cheers,
> Federica
>
>
> >===== Original Message From edling at ccat.sas.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
> >
> >
> >--
>
> *****************
> Federica Barbieri
> Research Assistant, Office of Academic Assessment
> Northern Arizona University
> 329 Peterson Hall BOX 4091
> Flagstaff, AZ 86011-4091
> Tel.: (928) 523 8655
> email: Federica.Barbieri at NAU.EDU
> http://www4.nau.edu/assessment
>
> PhD Program in Applied Linguistics
> Department of English
> Northern Arizona University
> Liberal Arts Building, BOX 6032
> Flagstaff, AZ 86011-6032
>
>