Sentence with a parenthetical phrase...

Question

"Being a great student leader, however, necessitates a greater lever of intelligence and an ability to speak not only eloquently but also to a variety of audiences, something I aspire to acquire."

1)What are the words in italics? I know that it is a noun and a relative clause, but is it an adverbial phrase? Answering what though?

2)Do you think separating the phrase from the sentence with a comma is fine? Or do you think I should separate it from the sentence with a period and make it a main clause:

"...a variety of audiences. This is something I aspire to acquire."

Thanks in advance.

Eddie88 · Accepted Answer

Hi, I don't know why know one answered this question, but if it is because they don't know the answer, I've found it. I discovered an extremely useful website discussing the 17 types of free modifiers and how they are punctuated.

It turns out that this phrase is a noun cluster. Here is the discussion for anyone who is interested:

In some cases, a final-position noun cluster consists of a word that summarizes all or part of the preceding P-structure; and the summarizing word is in turn modified by a bound relative clause (see below):

[44] (Being thorough) is a characteristic that I picked up over the years from my mother.

I’ve always been thorough—a characteristic that I picked up over the years from my mother.

It turns out I punctuated it correctly, but a dash would have been fine too! However, the relative clause should be restrictive, which makes sense.
I found this very useful as I often came across this type of phrase which I not only did not know how to punctuate or what to name it. Many other phrase like this are on this site if anyone would like the hyperlink.

Cheers.

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