Martha is a bright girl who displays good character.

[Threejars]

Hello although I have researchers when you use a comma before who I am really struggling with this sentence:

Martha is a bright girl who displays good character.

With a comma the sentence feels too choppy

 

[emsr2d2]

Hello. Although I have researchers to help me, I am still confused about when you use a comma before "who". I am really struggling with this sentence:

Martha is a bright girl who displays good character.

With a comma, the sentence feels too choppy.

Welcome to the forum.

Please note my changes above. Why do you have your own researchers and why have they been unable to help with your problem?
Make sure you always write in complete sentences.
Mark out words you're asking us about in some way. I've put the relevant word in quotation marks above.
There were three punctuation errors in your text so I don't think it's just commas you're struggling with.

There is no need for a comma in that sentence. Where did you think a comma might go?

 

[Threejars]

Welcome to the forum.

Please note my changes above. Why do you have your own researchers and why have they been unable to help with your problem?
Make sure you always write in complete sentences.
Mark out words you're asking us about in some way. I've put the relevant word in quotation marks above.
There were three punctuation errors in your text so I don't think it's just commas you're struggling with.

There is no need for a comma in that sentence. Where did you think a comma might go?

Thank you for correcting me. I will try to do better. I meant that I’ve researched the use of “who” and I don’t understand.

Martha is a bright girl, who has good character.

Is not the part after “girl” non-essential?

 

[Tarheel]

Thank you for correcting me. I will try to do better. I meant that I’ve researched the use of “who” and I don’t understand.

Martha is a bright girl, who has good character.

Is not the part after “girl” non-essential?

The comma is wrong there. The noun phrase after "is" is "a bright girl who has good character". There is no point to inserting a comma there.

You might say that the noun phrase answers the question "Who is Martha?" The answer: a bright girl who has good character.

 

[Threejars]

You might say that the noun phrase answers the question "Who is Martha?" The answer: a bright girl who has good character.

Thank you

 

[emsr2d2]

Thank you.

You must end every sentence with a closing punctuation mark. Note that, in future, you don't need to write a new post to thank anyone. If you hover your mouse over the "Like" button, you'll see a "Thank" option. Just click on that on the relevant post.

 

[jutfrank]

Martha is a bright girl, who displays good character.

Is not the part after “girl” non-essential?

Yes, it probably is, which is why the comma is needed.

Is this your own made-up sentence?

 

[Threejars]

Yes, it probably is, which is why the comma is needed.

Is this your own made-up sentence?

I don’t understand. The other person said no comma? Which one is correct? Yes it is.

 

[emsr2d2]

I wouldn't use a comma in that sentence. However, I've looked at several grammar websites that suggest that one should be used because "who displays good character" is indeed additional information. However, they also say that a comma should be used only if the part after the [non-existent] comma can be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence. For me, that's not the case here. If you remove "who displays good character", the meaning of the full sentence completely changes because it becomes simply "Martha is a bright girl" and contains no information about her character!

 

[emsr2d2]

As I'm sure you're aware, if you changed the word order, two commas would be required, one of which would come before "who".

Martha, who displays good character, is a bright girl.

 

[Skrej]

The grammatical question in point is using commas with restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses.

Restrictive clauses are those which are critically necessary to identify the noun they're describing. Removing them either changes the sentence and/or it becomes unclear what noun out of many similar nouns the sentence is referring to.

e.g. The woman who's speaking now is my mother. (This is restrictive, because it limits the wide range of potential women who could be my mother to just the one speaking now. Remove it, and you have no idea which woman is my mother. )

Nonrestrictive clauses are those that don't specifically identify the noun they modify, but just give extra bonus information. Remove it, and the sentence is essentially unchanged and still clear.

John Doe, who's the current company CEO, hates cats. (This is nonrestrictive, because although it does give us some extra information about Mr Doe, removing it doesn't change the basic idea of the sentence that he hates cats. Nor is it unclear who hates cats if you remove it.

The rule is that nonrestrictive clauses are separated with commas. Restrictive clauses are not.


Regarding the original sentence:
Martha is a bright girl who displays good character.

Personally, I wouldn't consider it restrictive. Martha's still a bright girl, regardless of whether she has good character, bad character, or no character. Her character is just bonus information about her, but the original sense of the sentence about her intelligence is still unchanged.

Ergo, I'd use the comma.

Martha is a bright girl, who displays good character.

 

[jutfrank]

I hope people don't mind if I basically repeat what Skrej has said above in a slightly different way.

... a comma should be used only if the part after the [non-existent] comma can be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence. For me, that's not the case here.

It is the case here, probably. There are two ways of interpreting the sentence, so the comma is crucial to disambiguate the meaning. With the comma, the following part is extra information. This is what I'm fairly sure the OP means to say.

If you remove "who displays good character", the meaning of the full sentence completely changes

It's not the meaning of the whole sentence that's important—only the meaning of the part before the comma.

because it becomes simply "Martha is a bright girl" and contains no information about her character!

Yes. The point is that the clause Martha is a bright girl in the full sentence has the same meaning as Martha is a bright girl in the sentence with who displays good character omitted. In technical terms, the phrase who displays good character is 'non-defining', meaning it doesn't alter the meaning of what comes before it.

Without the necessary comma, the relative clause becomes defining and the meaning is quite different:

Martha is a bright girl who displays good character.

This can be read to mean that there are different kinds of bright girl and Martha is the type of bright girl who displays good character. I'm pretty sure that is not what the OP means.

 

[Tarheel]

I thought speaker meaning was important.

 

[jutfrank]

I thought speaker meaning was important.

Yes, it's very important. What do you think the speaker means by this sentence?

 

[Tarheel]

The speaker means to say Martha has good character. In a sense, it's the first part that's relatively unimportant. The speaker might as well have that Martha is pretty and displays good character or that she has red hair and displays good character. Granted, there isn't much context, but it my humble opinion the comment about her character is the point. If it was me saying it that would be the case. If I only wanted to say she's intelligent I would leave the part about her character out of it.

People say things for a reason, and that reason usually has nothing to do with grammar rules.

 

[Skrej]

The speaker means to say Martha has good character. In a sense, it's the first part that's relatively unimportant. The speaker might as well have that Martha is pretty and displays good character or that she has red hair and displays good character. Granted, there isn't much context, but it my humble opinion the comment about her character is the point. If it was me saying it that would be the case. If I only wanted to say she's intelligent I would leave the part about her character out of it.

While I can see that interpretation, I'd expect the speaker to start with the character comment in that case instead of saving it for last.

The only reason I consider the intelligence issue primary and character secondary in this sentence is simply because that's the order they're listed. If the intelligence issue was listed second, then I'd consider it the nonrestrictive clause.