Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[nawee]

Hello,

Should there be another comma betwen "who" and "in"? Can we punctuate this sentence differently?

Careful research, however, makes it absolutely clear that Ts'ai Luin was a real man, an official at the Chinese imperial court, who in or about the year 105 A.D., resented Enperor Ho Ti with samples of paper.

Thank you,

Nawee

[Mister Micawber]

.
You need to be careful of 'comma clutter'; that is why we don't need one after who. Also, that clause could just as well be restrictive. If you find yourself over-commaed, try to rearrange the elements:

However, careful research makes it absolutely clear that Ts'ai Luin was a real man, an official at the Chinese imperial court who presented Emperor Ho Ti with samples of paper in or about the year AD 105.
.
_________________
"I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences." � Gertrude Stein
...............
Canadian-American who teaches English for a living at Mr Micawber's

[nawee]

Hello,

If we don't need a comma after "who", then why is there a comma before "resented"? Isn't it strange to have a comma between the subject ("who") and the verb "presented"?

"... who in or about 105 A.D., presented the Emperor Ho Ti with samples of paper."

I was taught that when the non-defining subordinate clauses is between 2 commas and can be removed without affecting the main clause. Isn't "in or about 105 A.D." a non-defining subordinate clause?

Can I punctuate the sentence this way, if I want to keep the same order of words? Below I chose not to put the comma before "who" and makes "who... paper" a defining subordinate clause of "an official at the Chinese imperial court" instead.

"Careful research, however, makes it absolutely clear that Ts' ai Lun was a real man, an official at the Chinese imperial court who, in or about the year 105 A.D., presented Emperor Ho Ti with samples of paper."

Thank you,

Nawee

[Mister Micawber]

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[nawee]

Hi,

I didn't write that sentence myself. I found it in an English exercise, which was designed to help students 'disect' complicated sentences they might find in academic English. So I didn't put any comma there personally. I just wanted to understand why the commas were there. I copied all the commas, the same way I copied the spelling mistake. In fact, I didn't realise it was a typo until you corrected it in your post. I thought the sentence didn't make a lot of sense because I myself didn't understand it, not because the sentence had a typo.

Sorry if my questions were not clear before. And thank you for your answers.

Nawee

[asterix]

Well, I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy, and I think you do need a comma after who.

[damon@English24/7]

Let me add to the debate... and I would love to hear from someone who could answer this authoratatively.

I think you need the commas. You surround clauses or words in the middle of a sentence that are not essential with a pair of commas at each end. Your basic sentence is:

Careful research makes it absolutely clear that Ts'ai Luin was a real man who presented Emperor Ho Ti with samples of paper.

When you add "however," "an official at the Chinese imperial court" and "in about the year 102 A.D." then you need to surround them with commas.

If I were writing the sentence myself, I would rewrite it to avoid using so many commas because I do agree that it looks awkward and is difficult to read with so many commas.

Can anyone elaborate, though.

[asterix]

The idea behind punctuation is to indicate the tones and pauses that would be made if the same words were spoken out loud.
Much of speech is made up of pauses, of hesitations, of small delays and full stops. Without indication of these small, necessary silences it would take the reader much longer to decipher anything he read.
Commas indicate the small pauses inside the sentence. If, when you speak, you would naturally pause at a certain point, that is where you need a comma.
Commas also help to remove ambiguity...
e.g.
Did the cat eat Marvin?
Did the cat eat, Marvin?

Bill, the cat has run away.
Bill, the cat, has run away.

For every kind of pause that is natural to speech, written language has a corresponding mark of punctuation.