Jun 9, 2003 20:15
21 yrs ago
1 viewer *
English term
When to put a ',' before 'which'
Non-PRO
English
Other
Linguistics
Grammar
When do you put a ',' before 'which' in a sentence?
I have forgotten the rules.
I have forgotten the rules.
Responses
+4
40 mins
Selected
if it is a non-defining relative clause
i.e. if it contains "extra" non-essential information. Compare:
1. "The house, which Jack built, is falling down." (Main clause - "The house is falling down", "extra info" - Jack built it.
2. "The house which Jack built is falling down" (Essential, defining information - which house? - the house which Jack built, not the house which Tom, Dick etc,. built, or any other house.)
You can replace "which" with "that" only in defining relative clauses.
The "rule" - often broken - holds for all relative pronouns, not just "which.
Compare:
1.The students, who worked hard, passed their exams.
2. The students who worked hard passed their exams.
There is a difference! - in the first sentence all the students in question passed AND all worked hard. In the second sentence only the students who worked hard passed (and by implication some others in the group did not).
This is GB English usage and I suspect there may be variations with US English - I always notice problems with this if my spellchecker is set to US English!
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Note added at 2003-06-09 23:26:30 (GMT)
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Note to Christopher:
The two commas \"can\" be there (rule-wise) but, in my view, \"shouldn\'t\" be, not for any grammatical reason but because the sentence is stylistically so clumsy that it would be better if someone re-wrote it!
I agree that a slavish addiction to \"rules\" can be tedious but I do also accept that punctuation, when used clearly and carefully,is designed to clarify meaning rather than obscure it. That\'s what it\'s there for! In the case of defining/non-defining clauses, it also mirrors the stress/intonation curves in the two different sentence types - so maybe the Duke hit the nail on the head!
On the other hand, though it\'s a great philosophy for a creative artist to live by, it could be a fairly dodgy one for translators ..
1. "The house, which Jack built, is falling down." (Main clause - "The house is falling down", "extra info" - Jack built it.
2. "The house which Jack built is falling down" (Essential, defining information - which house? - the house which Jack built, not the house which Tom, Dick etc,. built, or any other house.)
You can replace "which" with "that" only in defining relative clauses.
The "rule" - often broken - holds for all relative pronouns, not just "which.
Compare:
1.The students, who worked hard, passed their exams.
2. The students who worked hard passed their exams.
There is a difference! - in the first sentence all the students in question passed AND all worked hard. In the second sentence only the students who worked hard passed (and by implication some others in the group did not).
This is GB English usage and I suspect there may be variations with US English - I always notice problems with this if my spellchecker is set to US English!
--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 2003-06-09 23:26:30 (GMT)
--------------------------------------------------
Note to Christopher:
The two commas \"can\" be there (rule-wise) but, in my view, \"shouldn\'t\" be, not for any grammatical reason but because the sentence is stylistically so clumsy that it would be better if someone re-wrote it!
I agree that a slavish addiction to \"rules\" can be tedious but I do also accept that punctuation, when used clearly and carefully,is designed to clarify meaning rather than obscure it. That\'s what it\'s there for! In the case of defining/non-defining clauses, it also mirrors the stress/intonation curves in the two different sentence types - so maybe the Duke hit the nail on the head!
On the other hand, though it\'s a great philosophy for a creative artist to live by, it could be a fairly dodgy one for translators ..
Peer comment(s):
agree |
verbis
31 mins
|
agree |
Fuad Yahya
1 hr
|
agree |
Kardi Kho
2 hrs
|
agree |
Tanja Abramovic (X)
: Why just 3 points?
22 hrs
|
3 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "This was the rule I was thinking about. Thank you very much everybody for the GREAT links and your explanations. I believe ALL of your answers will come in very handy next time I run in to a 'which'. Special thanks to Christopher for bringing my addition at the top of his answer. As usual, grades can't be split, so... ;o) "
8 mins
comma use
"Use a comma to set off parenthetical elements, as in "The Founders Bridge, which spans the Connecticut River, is falling down."
Look at rule n° 4 in the link below. Good explanation.
Look at rule n° 4 in the link below. Good explanation.
Reference:
+5
14 mins
See explanation
Grammatically speaking, there always must be a comma before which. See why:
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/062.html#THAT
that / which (restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses). The standard rule requires that you use that only to introduce a restrictive (or defining) relative clause, which identifies the person or thing being talked about; in this use it should never be preceded by a comma. Thus, in the sentence The house that Jack built has been torn down, the clause that Jack built is a restrictive clause telling which specific house was torn down. Similarly, in I am looking for a book that is easy to read, the restrictive clause that is easy to read tells what kind of book is desired. 1
By contrast, you use which only with nonrestrictive (or nondefining) clauses, which give additional information about something that has already been identified in the context; in this use, which is always preceded by a comma. Thus you should say The students in Chemistry 101 have been complaining about the textbook, which (not that) is hard to follow. The clause which is hard to follow is nonrestrictive in that it does not indicate which text is being complained about; even if it were omitted, we would know that the phrase the textbook refers to the text in Chemistry 101. It should be easy to follow the rule in nonrestrictive clauses like this, since which here sounds more natural than that. 2
Some people extend the rule and insist that, just as that should be used only in restrictive clauses, which should be used only in nonrestrictive clauses. By this thinking, you should avoid using which in sentences such as I need a book which will tell me all about city gardening, where the restrictive clause which will tell me all about city gardening describes what sort of book is needed. But this use of which with restrictive clauses is very common, even in edited prose. If you fail to follow the rule in this point, you have plenty of company. Moreover, there are some situations in which which is preferable to that. Which can be especially useful where two or more relative clauses are joined by and or or: It is a philosophy in which ordinary people may find solace and which many have found reason to praise. You may also want to use which to introduce a restrictive clause when the preceding phrase contains a that: We want to assign only that book which will be most helpful.
http://www.bartleby.com/64/C001/062.html#THAT
that / which (restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses). The standard rule requires that you use that only to introduce a restrictive (or defining) relative clause, which identifies the person or thing being talked about; in this use it should never be preceded by a comma. Thus, in the sentence The house that Jack built has been torn down, the clause that Jack built is a restrictive clause telling which specific house was torn down. Similarly, in I am looking for a book that is easy to read, the restrictive clause that is easy to read tells what kind of book is desired. 1
By contrast, you use which only with nonrestrictive (or nondefining) clauses, which give additional information about something that has already been identified in the context; in this use, which is always preceded by a comma. Thus you should say The students in Chemistry 101 have been complaining about the textbook, which (not that) is hard to follow. The clause which is hard to follow is nonrestrictive in that it does not indicate which text is being complained about; even if it were omitted, we would know that the phrase the textbook refers to the text in Chemistry 101. It should be easy to follow the rule in nonrestrictive clauses like this, since which here sounds more natural than that. 2
Some people extend the rule and insist that, just as that should be used only in restrictive clauses, which should be used only in nonrestrictive clauses. By this thinking, you should avoid using which in sentences such as I need a book which will tell me all about city gardening, where the restrictive clause which will tell me all about city gardening describes what sort of book is needed. But this use of which with restrictive clauses is very common, even in edited prose. If you fail to follow the rule in this point, you have plenty of company. Moreover, there are some situations in which which is preferable to that. Which can be especially useful where two or more relative clauses are joined by and or or: It is a philosophy in which ordinary people may find solace and which many have found reason to praise. You may also want to use which to introduce a restrictive clause when the preceding phrase contains a that: We want to assign only that book which will be most helpful.
Peer comment(s):
agree |
J. Leo (X)
31 mins
|
agree |
Сергей Лузан
49 mins
|
agree |
Marijke Singer
: Nice explanation!
1 hr
|
www.bartleby.com is a great source for grammar and usage ;-)
|
|
agree |
Drem
1 hr
|
agree |
2rush
6 hrs
|
+1
1 hr
"If it *sounds* good, it *is* good" (Duke Ellington, attr.)
Pia writes me that
>I have tried twice now to post my answer to your request, but I don't think it worked!
, which it didn't.
seems like this site is sometimes buggy as hell, which some of you probably already noticed, but, which i don't really pay any mind to.
so she asked me to post her clarification for her, which, here
goes:
[Original Sentence : ]
>"After regaining independence, Ukraine attempted to maintain a central
planned economy policy, which in late 1993 led to an economic crisis, which
nearly led to hyperinflation."
>What I need to know is: can/should both ','s be there or perhaps none of them and why.
the explication of the Rules given by Gayle, uFO and Sheena seem reasonable enough to me, but i just fly these things by the seat of my pants --like Duke Ellington said above, which sounds like a pretty good rule of thumb
for a lot of things in this life.
actually, i could see/hear this both ways, the first works, but so does this
one :
"After regaining independence, Ukraine attempted to maintain a central planned
economy policy which, in late 1993, led to an economic crisis which nearly led to hyperinflation."
[no preceeding comma, in either instance]
this seems better to me than :
"After regaining independence, Ukraine attempted to maintain a central planned
economy policy, which, in late 1993, led to an economic crisis, which nearly
led to hyperinflation."
on the theory that, in certain cases, "in late 1993" might warrant being set off by commas by itself for emphesis and, which would therefore leave that first "which" out there chopped up as its own little one-word clause, looking a bit too fussy and, which is *really* fussy when there's a comma before the second, which.
but, that's a special case.
, which is why i axed for the sentence in the first place, so that we could
try and figure out, which sounds best.
if you see what i'm saying.
iOw, depending upon, which part of the sentence you wish to emphasize, which can be preceeded by a comma or not, but, if it is, then you need to take care not to end up with a sentence, which looks overly fussy because you've preceeded each of your, witches by commas, which is an overly slavish subserviance to the Rules, which might put your reader off, depending upon, which language he or she speaks, if you can see what I'm saying.
Tricky question.
>I have tried twice now to post my answer to your request, but I don't think it worked!
, which it didn't.
seems like this site is sometimes buggy as hell, which some of you probably already noticed, but, which i don't really pay any mind to.
so she asked me to post her clarification for her, which, here
goes:
[Original Sentence : ]
>"After regaining independence, Ukraine attempted to maintain a central
planned economy policy, which in late 1993 led to an economic crisis, which
nearly led to hyperinflation."
>What I need to know is: can/should both ','s be there or perhaps none of them and why.
the explication of the Rules given by Gayle, uFO and Sheena seem reasonable enough to me, but i just fly these things by the seat of my pants --like Duke Ellington said above, which sounds like a pretty good rule of thumb
for a lot of things in this life.
actually, i could see/hear this both ways, the first works, but so does this
one :
"After regaining independence, Ukraine attempted to maintain a central planned
economy policy which, in late 1993, led to an economic crisis which nearly led to hyperinflation."
[no preceeding comma, in either instance]
this seems better to me than :
"After regaining independence, Ukraine attempted to maintain a central planned
economy policy, which, in late 1993, led to an economic crisis, which nearly
led to hyperinflation."
on the theory that, in certain cases, "in late 1993" might warrant being set off by commas by itself for emphesis and, which would therefore leave that first "which" out there chopped up as its own little one-word clause, looking a bit too fussy and, which is *really* fussy when there's a comma before the second, which.
but, that's a special case.
, which is why i axed for the sentence in the first place, so that we could
try and figure out, which sounds best.
if you see what i'm saying.
iOw, depending upon, which part of the sentence you wish to emphasize, which can be preceeded by a comma or not, but, if it is, then you need to take care not to end up with a sentence, which looks overly fussy because you've preceeded each of your, witches by commas, which is an overly slavish subserviance to the Rules, which might put your reader off, depending upon, which language he or she speaks, if you can see what I'm saying.
Tricky question.
Peer comment(s):
agree |
Kardi Kho
: ...to maintain a central planned economy policy which, in late 1993, led to an economic crisis that nearly led to hyperinflation.
2 hrs
|
Thanks, K.
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neutral |
David Moore (X)
: Please, Christopher, use "I" and not "i"
13 hrs
|
o.k., i'll try, David, but only because you said "please." Iow, thanks.
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Discussion