 #17 (permalink) Sun Dec 12, 2010 15:49 pm Relative Pronouns, Please help!! |
|
|
Hi BlackCitadel,
| Quote: |
| My mother, who is ninety-one years old, lives in a retirement community. |
This sentence needs a pair of commas because it contains a non-defining clause in the middle of the main clause. The main clause is this:
- My mother lives in a retirement community.
You do not need to define 'my mother' further because there is only one person who is your mother. You have only one mother, not several mothers.
If you do NOT add commas, then the sentence seems to contain a defining clause. If you use 'who is ninety-one years old' as a defining clause (i.e. without commas separating it from the main clause), that suggests that you have more than one 'my mother' and that you are differentiating between your various mothers by age. In other words, without commas the sentence defines 'my mother' as being the one that is ninety-one years old -- you are NOT referring to the 'my mother' who is eighty-eight, and not to the 'my mother' who is seventy-nine, for example. A defining clause would identify which of your various mothers you are referring to. However, since any given person has only one 'my mother', it doesn't make any sense to suggest that you have various mothers. You do not have more than one 'my mother'. So, when someone says 'my mother', we already know which mother the speaker is referring to.
Thus, it makes no sense here to use 'who is ninety-one years old' as a defining clause. As a non-defining clause, 'who is ninety-one years old' simply adds extra information about 'my mother'.
____________________________________________________________
"Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother." ~ Erma Bombeck |
|
 Esl_Expert
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 981
Location: USA
|
