He was 24 in 2000, when I was only five years old.

Status
Not open for further replies.

keannu

VIP Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
This is a question related to a relative adverb, and the answer goes like this. But does a comma have to be inserted between "2000' and "when"? The explanation for the answer is that 2000 is already known information and when-clause is addtional information for it.
But why can the original sentence be as it is? In the original sentence, when-clause can work as a describing part for 2000, can't it?

Q.Correct a wrong part.
ex)He was 24 in 2000 when I was only five years old. (no comma)
=> He was 24 in 2000, when I was only five years old. (comma)

gz2-46
 

BobK

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 29, 2006
Location
Spencers Wood, near Reading, UK
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Hint: In 2000, when I was only five years old, he was 24 What you think about that with only the second comma?

b
 

keannu

VIP Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
Hint: In 2000, when I was only five years old, he was 24 What you think about that with only the second comma?

b

I think the second sentence with a comma makes sense, but doesn't the original sentence without a comma make sense as well?
 

keannu

VIP Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
I'd like to know if the original sentence makes sense.
ex)He was 24 in 2000 when I was only five years old. (no comma)
 

Raymott

VIP Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2008
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Australia
Current Location
Australia
I'd like to know if the original sentence makes sense.
ex)He was 24 in 2000 when I was only five years old. (no comma)
I don't notice any ambiguity without the comma since, as your say, 2000 is 2000, and it can't be modified by the following clause. But I'd use a comma anyway, since it's a non-defining clause.
 

BobK

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 29, 2006
Location
Spencers Wood, near Reading, UK
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Do you mean it doesn't work?

Not for me. As Raymott says, there's no ambiguity without it, but if we all stopped doing things on those grounds language would be pretty anarachic ;-). Sometimes you do something because it's the right thing to do.

b
 

keannu

VIP Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
Not for me. As Raymott says, there's no ambiguity without it, but if we all stopped doing things on those grounds language would be pretty anarachic ;-). Sometimes you do something because it's the right thing to do.

b
Actually, I roughly understood the explanation of you two, but as a non-native speaker, I can't understand well. I'm sorry this might be frustrating.
Is the logic like this? If something is defined like 2000, isn't there any more to add to describe it? I seem to have seen phrases like "In the year 2002 when Korea advanced to the World Cup semifinal,....." without a comma, and this concept of adding commas is new to me.
 

BobK

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 29, 2006
Location
Spencers Wood, near Reading, UK
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Actually, I roughly understood the explanation of you two, but as a non-native speaker, I can't understand well. I'm sorry this might be frustrating.
Is the logic like this? If something is defined like 2000, isn't there any more to add to describe it? I seem to have seen phrases like "In the year 2002 when Korea advanced to the World Cup semifinal,....." without a comma, and this concept of adding commas is new to me.

Mnemonic for handling non-defining clauses: if it's a comment add a comma.

b
 

Raymott

VIP Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2008
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Australia
Current Location
Australia
I seem to have seen phrases like "In the year 2002 when Korea advanced to the World Cup semifinal,....." without a comma, and this concept of adding commas is new to me.
No doubt you did see that. But you were asking about what was correct, not what you were likely to see. I would have put a comma after 2002 in the above, because it's parenthetical, not because the clause is non-defining. (At least, I'm guessing it's parenthetical - it's hard to say without the complete sentence).

I can see several possibilities here:
In 2002 when Korea advanced to the semifinal, Koreans went wild. (Not parenthetical)
In 2002, when Korea advanced to the semifinal, professional football was in a state of chaos. (Parenthetical)
 

BobSmith

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2012
Member Type
Interested in Language
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
United States
Not for me. As Raymott says, there's no ambiguity without it, but if we all stopped doing things on those grounds language would be pretty anarachic ;-). Sometimes you do something because it's the right thing to do.

Awesome word, I'd never heard it before. Is it spelled correctly? Should it be "anarchic"?
 
Last edited:

keannu

VIP Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
No doubt you did see that. But you were asking about what was correct, not what you were likely to see. I would have put a comma after 2002 in the above, because it's parenthetical, not because the clause is non-defining. (At least, I'm guessing it's parenthetical - it's hard to say without the complete sentence).

I can see several possibilities here:
In 2002 when Korea advanced to the semifinal, Koreans went wild. (Not parenthetical)
In 2002, when Korea advanced to the semifinal, professional football was in a state of chaos. (Parenthetical)

I may not understand the meaning of "non-defining clauses", can you tell me how to tell "non-defining phrases" from defining ones? So many relative pronouns and relative adverbs define the antecedent like "The doctor who showed me kindness is famous", etc
I can't understand how some clauses become comments, and others become defining ones, not knowing the criteria.

ex)In 2002 when Korea advanced to the semifinal, Koreans went wild. (Not parenthetical)
 

JohnParis

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2011
Member Type
Retired Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
United States
Current Location
France
Sorry to post this so late, but I have always maintained that by specifying a time at the beginning of a sentence, the writer can easily avoid confusion.

In 2000, he was 24 and I was 5.

Obviously, the comma is necessary.
 

Raymott

VIP Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2008
Member Type
Academic
Native Language
English
Home Country
Australia
Current Location
Australia
I may not understand the meaning of "non-defining phrases", can you tell me how to tell "non-defining phrases" from defining ones?
No, please, not again. There was a time a few months ago when that was all I was doing. But if you do a search of posts here for "defining clause" or "restrictive clause", you should find all you want to know. And if you don't, Google these phrases. If you still don't understand, I'd be happy to make another effort.
 

BobK

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Jul 29, 2006
Location
Spencers Wood, near Reading, UK
Member Type
Retired English Teacher
Native Language
English
Home Country
UK
Current Location
UK
Awesome word, I'd never heard it before. Is it spelled correctly? Should it be "anarchic"?

:oops: Your spelling's right. I guess I was influenced by those pictures of webs spun by drug-crazed spiders (on the web somewhere - someone with time on their hands may find them!) - a sort of anarchy mediated by arachnidae...?

b
 

keannu

VIP Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
No, please, not again. There was a time a few months ago when that was all I was doing. But if you do a search of posts here for "defining clause" or "restrictive clause", you should find all you want to know. And if you don't, Google these phrases. If you still don't understand, I'd be happy to make another effort.
Thanks a million! Everything was because I didn't know about defining(non-defining)clause, I searched this website and google as you recommended, and read the explanation about them, To prove my comprehension, I'd like to change the original sentence like this.

ex)He was 24 in 2000, when I was only five years old. (comma needed) => the non-defining clause is not essential to know his age in 2000 as 2000 never changes.
=> He was 24 in the year when I was only five years old.(no comma) => the defining clause is essential to give the information of his age!!!
 

keannu

VIP Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Korean
Home Country
South Korea
Current Location
South Korea
Just to verify one thing! In almost every Korean English grammar books, non-defining clause of relative pronoun(adverb) is defined as "consecutive usage of relative pronoun(adverb) not "non-defining clause". I was really surprised to see your explanation about "non-defining clause"
The grammar books define that in consecutive usage, relative pronoun(adverb) should be decomposed to (and, but, for)+antecedent, so they mainly focus on this concept, not additional information, which I have lost so far. So are the following true?
I wonder which I should focus on more, its being extra information or the decomposition or both.

who/which= (and, but, for)+antecedent
1) I passed the ball to Brian, who missed it.
= I passed the ball to Brian, but he missed it.
2)This house has a bedroom, which faces south
= This house has a bedroom, and it faces south.
 
Last edited:

5jj

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Member Type
English Teacher
Native Language
British English
Home Country
Czech Republic
Current Location
Czech Republic
I suggest that if you want to get anywhere with English, ignore Korean grammars of English.

And try to forget the word 'decomposition'.

[FONT=&quot]ps. keannu, since you joined us thirteen months ago, you have submitted nearly 1,500 posts, at an average rate of 3.78 a day. Most of your posts have been questions, and most have received more than one response – I would guess that you have received an absolute minimum of 2,000 responses to your posts.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]If you spent as much time thinking about the responses as you do formulating new questions, you might find that you needed to ask fewer questions.[/FONT]
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top