Talk:Philip Van Doren Stern

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Comma before nonrestrictive clause

A couple months ago, here, User:EEng undid my edit. I had added a comma before a nonrestrictive clause, stating in my edit summary "this relative clause is nonrestrictive". In undoing my edit, Eeng stated in the edit summary "actually it's restrictive".

This is the sentence in question:

Philip Van Doren Stern (September 10, 1900 – July 31, 1984) was an American author, editor, and Civil War historian whose story The Greatest Gift, published in 1943, inspired the classic Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

I added a comma just before "whose".

Without the comma, the sentence implyies that there also is another "American author, editor, and Civil War historian whose story The Greatest Gift, published in 1943, inspired the classic Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life (1946). The trouble is that there was not also another such person: there was only one—namely, Philip Van Doren Stern.

We can have

"the" and a restrictive clause (he was the American author (and so on) whose story The Greatest Gift (and so on))
or "a" and a nonrestrictive clause (unless there was more than one such person—which there wasn't).

I'm putting the comma back.

President Lethe (talk) 19:36, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry but I've taken it out again. English is not a programming langauge. See [1]. E Eng 21:20, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence is "Philip Van Doren Stern (September 10, 1900 – July 31, 1984) was an American author, editor, and Civil War historian whose story The Greatest Gift, published in 1943, inspired the classic Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life (1946)", with or without a comma before "whose".

It may be easier to get the idea across if we make a simpler sentence: "John F. Kennedy was a man who served as president of the United States in 1962." Should there be a comma before "who" or not? The question is whether the relative clause ("who served as president of the United States in 1962") is defining (restrictive) or not. This hinges on (A) the facts and (B) the article used before the word "man". We agree that only one man, J.F.K., served as president of the U.S. in 1962. If we say that someone was a man-who-served-as-U.S.-president-in-1962, then we are saying that there was more than one man-who-served-as-U.S.-president-in-1962. If we say that someone was the man-who-served-as-U.S.-president-in-1962, then we are saying that there was only one such man. This means we have two options:

We can use the indefinite article with a non-restrictive relative clause (requiring the presence of comma before who): John F. Kennedy was a man, who served as president of the United States in 1962.
We can use the definite article with a restrictive relative clause (requiring the absence of a comma before who): John F. Kennedy was the man who served as president of the United States in 1962.

If we keep those words and those historical facts, the following options don't work:

The indefinite article with a restrictive clause (no comma): John F. Kennedy was a man who served as president of the United States in 1962. (This is disallowed because it is misleading about the facts. There was not more than one such man.)
The definite article with a non-restrictive clause (comma): John F. Kennedy was the man, who served as president of the United States in 1962. (Except with special context, this is inadvisable because it makes the main clause too vague: "John F. Kennedy was the man", prompting us to ask "He was 'the man'? What man do you mean? What man was he?")

(A scenario from everyday life may make it more obvious. If I bring a man to you and I say to you "This is the man I told you about yesterday" (restrictive clause), it means that yesterday I told you about exactly one man. If I bring a man to you and I say to you "This is a man I told you about yesterday" (restrictive clause), it means that yesterday I told you about more than one man, and you're right to ask "Which one of the men you told me about yesterday is he?" We agree that the definiteness or indefiniteness of the article makes a specific suggestion about number; and number is significant in the restrictiveness or non-restrictiveness of a relative clause.)

(Another. If I bring a woman to you and I say to you "This is my sister I told you about yesterday", you can tell that it's a restrictive clause, that it means "Of my various sisters, this is the one about whom I told you yesterday". If I bring a woman to you and I say to you "This is my sister, whom I told you about yesterday", you can tell that it's a non-restrictive clause, that it means "I have only one sister, and I told you about her yesterday". All these are linked: number, restriction and non-restriction, definiteness and indefiniteness, and commas.)

Now let's look at the sentence about Philip Van Doren Stern. Let's simplify it thus: "Stern was an American whose story The Greatest Gift inspired the film It's a Wonderful Life." Is there more than one American-whose-story-The-Greatest-Gift-inspired-the-film-It's-a-Wonderful-Life? No. Only one American wrote that story. Again, we're left with two options:

We can use the indefinite article with a non-restrictive relative clause (requiring the presence of a comma before whose): Stern was an American, whose story The Greatest Gift inspired the film It's a Wonderful Life.
We can use the definite article with a restrictive relative clause (requiring the absence of a comma before whose): Stern was the American whose story The Greatest Gift inspired the film It's a Wonderful Life.

So we need the comma: "Philip Van Doren Stern (September 10, 1900 – July 31, 1984) was an American author, editor, and Civil War historian, whose story The Greatest Gift, published in 1943, inspired the classic Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life (1946)." Either that, or we avoid the comma and change an to the.

President Lethe (talk) 05:43, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]