A comma before 'which'

[Miss Mae]

One of the things I'm very careful about is to put a comma before which. So why has this sentence got printed?

Looked at from another angle, the aim of the "Long March to resist Japan in north China" was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and provided a reliably safe and self-sufficient base area in the north-west for the armed resistance against Japan which came later. (China Witness: Voices From A Silent Generation)

[Joe Carillo]

Let’s take a close look at the usage of the conjunction “which” in the sentence you quoted:

“Looked at from another angle, the aim of the ‘Long March to resist Japan in north China’ was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and provided a reliably safe and self-sufficient base area in the north-west for the armed resistance against Japan which came later.”

In that sentence, “which” is used as a function word to introduce a subordinate clause expressing consequence, result, or effect. That subordinate clause is “which came later,” which is a restrictive clause—meaning that this clause is essential or indispensable to the meaning of the sentence. (The opposite of a restrictive clause is, of course, the nonrestrictive or nonessential clause—meaning that the clause is not absolutely necessary to the meaning of the sentence. Put in another way, a clause that follows “which” merely adds information to the sentence and can actually be taken out without altering the basic idea.)

Now, in American English, the convention is to use the function word “that” to introduce a restrictive or essential clause, and to use “which” preceded by a comma to introduce a nonrestrictive or nonessential clause. This American English convention is the usage that you are particularly referring to, and you are absolutely right in expecting that comma to precede the “which” in that sentence, in which case it should read as follows:

“Looked at from another angle, the aim of the ‘Long March to resist Japan in north China’ was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and provided a reliably safe and self-sufficient base area in the north-west for the armed resistance against Japan, which came later.” 

But the big question is: Why wasn’t that comma provided before the “which”?

The answer is that either that sentence is grammatically wrong or that it’s not in American English to begin with. It was therefore necessary to check the provenance of that sentence. When I did, I found out that it was apparently written by Xuē Xīnrán, pen name Xinran, who is a British-Chinese journalist, broadcaster, and writer. That usage of “which” is therefore grammatically correct because the sentence you quoted is in British English, in which the grammatical convention for the usage of “which” is different from that of American English.

In British English, “which” is used in place of “that” for introducing both restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. The British English convention marks a nonrestrictive clause by preceding the “which” with a comma; when the clause is intended to be restrictive, no comma is used to precede “which.” In the case of the sentence you quoted, the absence of that comma before “which” is a telltale sign that we have a British English sentence here that an American English writer would have rendered with a “that”—with no comma before it, of course—as follows:

“Looked at from another angle, the aim of the ‘Long March to resist Japan in north China’ was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and provided a reliably safe and self-sufficient base area in the north-west for the armed resistance against Japan that came later.”

[Mwita Chacha]

Although the sentence under discussion is said to have correctly used the conjunction ''which''--based on the British English standard-- it is still terribly wanting in the other grammar aspects, or so I've observed. To be specific, the subject of that sentence, namely ''the aim,'' is followed by a linking verb ''was'' and completed by its subject complement in form of an infinitive phrase ''to allow'' with all its associated modifiers; but has nothing to do, in my view,  with the action verb ''provided'' next to comma. My comprehension is that, for the sake of parallelism, the past tense verb ''provided'' should have been reduced to its base form ''provide'' and introduced by particle ''to'' to make an infinitive ''to provide'' so as it forms a well-balanced pair of infinitives with the preceeding one ''to allow'' by compounding them with the coordinating conjunction ''and.''                                             

[Miss Mae]

I agree with you, Mwita Chacha, but instantly thought that that was just a typographical error that's why I didn't ask about it.

I'm not sure anymore now, though. This American-English-vis'-a-vis´-British-English is getting to my nerves, especially that I'm still grappling with the English language. Does this mean then that the author's usage of British English is the reason why there's no semi-colon in the following sentence?

I was born and grew up in Jingxiang village, in Cang'an county, Zheijang province, it has over six hundred years of history. (China Witness: Voices From A Silent Generation)

[Joe Carillo]

Mwita Chacha’s suggested revisions to that sentence from China Witness: Voices From A Silent Generation would result in the following sentence:

“Looked at from another angle, the aim of the ‘Long March to resist Japan in north China’ was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and to provide a reliably safe and self-sufficient base area in the north-west for the armed resistance against Japan that came later.”

I don’t think that the revision is faithful to the sense intended by the original statement. It seems clear to me that by using the past tense verb “provided,” the author meant the coordinate clause “(the Long March) provided a reliably safe and self-sufficient base area in the north-west for the armed resistance against Japan which came later” to be not a part of the stated aim of the Long March but a result—a positive consequence—of the decision to undertake that Long March.

I agree with Mwita Chacha, though, that the original sentence quoted by Miss Mae is wanting in some other grammar aspects. Indeed, I think the sense would have been clearer if the pronoun “it” was used as the subject of the second coordinate clause so that the shift from aim to consequence would be unmistakable:

“Looked at from another angle, the aim of the ‘Long March to resist Japan in north China’ was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and it provided a reliably safe and self-sufficient base area in the north-west for the armed resistance against Japan that came later.”

For greater clarity and to emphasize that shift from aim to consequence, however, I would have gone as far as using the emphatic form “did provide” in that coordinate clause, as follows:

“Looked at from another angle, the aim of the ‘Long March to resist Japan in north China’ was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and it did provide a reliably safe and self-sufficient base area in the north-west for the armed resistance against Japan that came later.”

Miss Mae, of course, is right in the case of this sentence from China Witness: “I was born and grew up in Jingxiang village, in Cang’an county, Zheijang province, it has over six hundred years of history.” It does need a semicolon instead of a comma after “Zheijang province”—and using that semicolon would be grammatically airtight regardless of whether British English or American English is being used in that sentence:

“I was born and grew up in Jingxiang village, in Cang’an county, Zheijang province; it has over six hundred years of history.”

As an editor, though, I’d go for narrative smoothness and use a summative modifier instead in that clause:

“I was born and I grew up in Jingxiang village, in Cang’an county, Zheijang province, a place that has over six hundred years of history.”

(Watch for my essay on summative modifiers as a clarifying device in exposition. I’ll post it in next week’s edition of the Forum.)

[Miss Mae]

Uh-oh, I don't think I understand 

I even thought at first that the sentence was simply a typographical error. That to provide a reliably safe and self-sufficient base area in the north-west for the armed resistance against Japan was just another of the aim of the Long March (the other being to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength). So I concluded that the sentence should just have been  -

Looked at from another angle, the aim of the "Long March to resist Japan in north China" was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and provide a reliably safe and self-sufficient base area in the north-west for the armed resistance against Japan which came later. (China Witness: Voices From A Silent Generation)

[Miss Mae]

Reading your column with The Manila Times led me to appreciate your grammatical prescription last Tuesday.

“Looked at from another angle, the aim of the ‘Long March to resist Japan in north China’ was to allow CCP members to rest and recoup their strength, and it provided a reliably safe and self-sufficient base area in the north-west for the armed resistance against Japan that came later.”

It must be the it, then

[jpri]

I tend to be "comma happy", or so I've been told, and use commas excessively sometimes, unsure of when really they should or should not be used. As a general rule, I typically use a comma any time I would pause if I were verbally speaking the sentence (and of course there are other reasons for which I use a comma). Is this how I should be placing my commas?

[ashleypaxtonn]

Exactly, a general rule for putting commas is that it should be put at the place in sentence where there is a pause but no long enough to consider it as a fullstop.