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Anonymous Posted 17 years ago
Grammar
Comma use in a parenthetical phrase
Hi,
In a university tutorial, we were asked to correct the sentence:
Morality is according to this view an outcome of learning forms of behavior deemed “acceptable” within a particular setting, community or society (Durkin, p. 396).
I believed commas should be put between "is" and "according" and between "view" and "an". However, the tutor gave this explanation: "Should be a comma between "view" and "an" and it would be OK to also place a comma after "is" but these days such usage of commas is being phased out". What is the correct way to do it?
I'm also trying to break the sentence down into its component parts, eg. clauses, phrases etc. but I haven't done grammar since school. Any help with this would be fantastic.
Thank you!
In a university tutorial, we were asked to correct the sentence:
Morality is according to this view an outcome of learning forms of behavior deemed “acceptable” within a particular setting, community or society (Durkin, p. 396).
I believed commas should be put between "is" and "according" and between "view" and "an". However, the tutor gave this explanation: "Should be a comma between "view" and "an" and it would be OK to also place a comma after "is" but these days such usage of commas is being phased out". What is the correct way to do it?
I'm also trying to break the sentence down into its component parts, eg. clauses, phrases etc. but I haven't done grammar since school. Any help with this would be fantastic.
Thank you!
Top answer
Morality is, according to this view, an outcome of learning forms of behavior deemed “acceptable” within a particular setting, community or society (Durkin, p. 396). In this case "according to this view" is almost like an aside.
- Morality is, according to this view, an outcome of learning forms of behavior deemed “acceptable” within a particular setting, community or society (Durkin, p.
- 396).
- In this case "according to this view" is almost like an aside.
- You can actually take out the aside and the sentence still makes sense.
- If you omit the first comma, then the subject "Morality" is verb"according" to object "this view" which doesn't make sense.
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2 Answers
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Morality is, according to this view, an outcome of learning forms of behavior deemed “acceptable” within a particular setting, community or society (Durkin, p. 396).
In this case "according to this view" is almost like an aside. You can actually take out the aside and the sentence still makes sense. If you omit the first comma, then the subject "Morality" is verb"according" to object "
In this case "according to this view" is almost like an aside. You can actually take out the aside and the sentence still makes sense. If you omit the first comma, then the subject "Morality" is verb"according" to object "
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Sometimes commas can be omitted to tighten up the statement, but not here– both are needed.
Morality is, according to this view, an outcome of learning forms of behavior deemed 'acceptable' within a particular setting, community or society.
[Morality is...an outcome]-- core main clause: S-V-C.
[according to this view]-- prepositional phrase acting as
Morality is, according to this view, an outcome of learning forms of behavior deemed 'acceptable' within a particular setting, community or society.
[Morality is...an outcome]-- core main clause: S-V-C.
[according to this view]-- prepositional phrase acting as
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