restrictive clause

[Allen165]

Here's an excerpt from an article that ran in the Boston Herald:

Nate Robinson won’t be on the floor with his full team until tomorrow’s shootaround. But at least the new guard made it onto the floor yesterday.
Traded to the Celtics [team stats] from New York on Thursday (with Marcus Landry for Eddie House, Bill Walker and J.R. Giddens), Robinson has been fighting flu-like symptoms, which prevented him from joining the club out west.

Couldn't one make a strong case that "prevented him from joining the club out west" is a restrictive clause, and that there should hence be no comma before "which"? A restrictive clause is something that's essential to the meaning of a sentence, and that appears to be the case in the sentence above.

Thanks.

 

[bhaisahab]

Here's an excerpt from an article that ran in the Boston Herald:

Nate Robinson won’t be on the floor with his full team until tomorrow’s shootaround. But at least the new guard made it onto the floor yesterday.
Traded to the Celtics [team stats] from New York on Thursday (with Marcus Landry for Eddie House, Bill Walker and J.R. Giddens), Robinson has been fighting flu-like symptoms, which prevented him from joining the club out west.

Couldn't one make a strong case that "prevented him from joining the club out west" is a restrictive clause, and that there should hence be no comma before "which"? A restrictive clause is something that's essential to the meaning of a sentence, and that appears to be the case in the sentence above.

Thanks.

Yes, you are right, the comma is wrong.

 

[TheParser]

Here's an excerpt from an article that ran in the Boston Herald:

Nate Robinson won’t be on the floor with his full team until tomorrow’s shootaround. But at least the new guard made it onto the floor yesterday.
Traded to the Celtics [team stats] from New York on Thursday (with Marcus Landry for Eddie House, Bill Walker and J.R. Giddens), Robinson has been fighting flu-like symptoms, which prevented him from joining the club out west.

Couldn't one make a strong case that "prevented him from joining the club out west" is a restrictive clause, and that there should hence be no comma before "which"? A restrictive clause is something that's essential to the meaning of a sentence, and that appears to be the case in the sentence above.

Thanks.

***NOT A TEACHER***jasmin, good morning. May I contribute my opinion? Mr. Robinson has been fighting flu-like symptoms, which prevented him from joining the club out west. Perhaps some people would prefer to interpret the "which" as a relative pronoun that "modifies" the whole sentence. In other words, "which" is not referring to flu-like symptoms alone. It refers to the whole idea.= He has been fighting the flu, a fact which is preventing him from joining his mates. Thank you.

 

[Allen165]

***NOT A TEACHER***jasmin, good morning. May I contribute my opinion? Mr. Robinson has been fighting flu-like symptoms, which prevented him from joining the club out west. Perhaps some people would prefer to interpret the "which" as a relative pronoun that "modifies" the whole sentence. In other words, "which" is not referring to flu-like symptoms alone. It refers to the whole idea.= He has been fighting the flu, a fact which is preventing him from joining his mates. Thank you.

You make an interesting point. When one interprets the sentence that way, the comma before "which" makes sense.