[EDLING:606] RE: Spanish question follow-up

[Christophe PORTEFIN]

Hi,
the same in French
as a FSL teacher, I have to teech how it is possible to put the good comma in the right way.
In French, but in a stylistic and litterary way, you should not write too long sentences, otherwise it is too hard to understand. It is better to do with full stops.
Moreover, you can't write "A man is here, and he is a lawyer.". Usually it is forbidden to put a comma after and : you have to choose between "and" or a comma even if the meaning is the same. 
1 "A man is here, he is a lawyer"
2 "A man is here and he is a lawyer"
3 "A man is here. He is a lawyer"
All these sentences are good in French and have the same meaning. The 1st one is just for giving the information he is a lawyer.
The 2nd one means that it is important to know this man is a lawyer. The 3rd one is more emphatics, so imagine this one with a question mark.
Christophe PORTEFIN
FSL teacher and PHd student.





> Message du 27/01/05 08:16
> De : "Debra Myhill" 
> A : edling at ccat.sas.upenn.edu, penguists at babel.ling.upenn.edu
> Copie à : 
> Objet : [EDLING:605] RE: Spanish question follow-up
> Hi
> Re: the comma splice/run-on sentence in British Standard English.
> 
> All the English examples you give in the last email would not be regarded as
> acceptable here, particularly from a literacy teaching perspective.
> Students would have these highlighted and teaching would try to show that a
> full stop (or sometimes a semi-colon) was needed.
> 
> A study of secondary school writers here in the UK in 1999 found (amongst
> other things) that comma splicing was a characteristic of C grade (average)
> writers. A grade writers were much less likely to comma splice whilst in
> the weakest writers absence of punctuation altogether was the main problem.
> 
> I'm not aware that newspaper journalism here uses comma splicing, but I will
> look more closely - but I don't think that in formal public writing, it is
> accepted here. It is seen most commonly in less 'checked' writing such as
> local leaflets; flyers and parish magazines etc.
> 
> Hope this helps!
> 
> Debra Myhill
> Professor of Education
> University of Exeter
> School of Education and Lifelong Learning
> Heavitree Rd
> Exeter EX1 2LU
> Tel (01392) 264767
> e-mail D.A.Myhill at exeter.ac.uk
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-edling at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
> [mailto:owner-edling at ccat.sas.upenn.edu] On Behalf Of
> sicola at dolphin.upenn.edu
> Sent: 27 January 2005 06:17
> To: edling at ccat.sas.upenn.edu; penguists at babel.ling.upenn.edu
> Subject: [EDLING:603] Spanish question follow-up
> 
> Hi again,
> 
> Thanks to all for your thoughtful responses. Not to belabor the point, but
> in 
> retrospect, I wonder if my example ("I am a lawyer, it is a good job"/"Soy 
> abogado, es un buen trabajo") wasn't overly simplified.
> 
> Here is an example from a student's paper. Translated, would this be
> "formally 
> acceptable" in written Spanish, or has it crossed the line into "run-on" as
> it 
> appears in English? 
> 
> "When I was in the middle of my career, I started to work in a Public
> Notary, 
> in that job, I was the assistant of the Notary, it was very interesting and 
> hard job, because I have to go to many important meetings and advise a lot
> of 
> people, and sometimes when I have to go to the University to take my classes
> I 
> was very tired or I was late or I couldn't get there because of the work,
> but 
> with the time I got just to it."
> 
> (Later in the same essay:)
> 
> "The company had many small companies and has all types of marketing stock, 
> like for an example Restaurants, Bars, Real Estate Companies etc it was a
> big 
> challenge, so I last there around seven months, in the mean time, I was 
> looking for a course of English out of (my country), and I found a ELP
> program 
> in UPENN, that's why I'm here studying, but before I came here, I have to
> quit 
> my job."
> 
> Is this degree of association still "officially standard"? (NB: I don't know
> 
> that I consider newspaper journalism to be a good yardstick by which to 
> measure "formal/standard writing," though it is "professional writing" so to
> 
> speak, at least in English.) Does Spanish have no such principle as a
> "run-on 
> sentence"? If it does, but these aren't examples thereof, can someone 
> demonstrate what one would look like? If run-ons as such are officially 
> standard, I'll concede the point, wave my white flag and accept this as 
> today's "you learn something new every day" token. 
> 
> Thanks for humoring me on this,
> Laura
> -- 
> 
> 
> 



Christophe PORTEFIN 
christophe.portefin at wanadoo.fr
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