So as long as we are talking about 'correctness,' what do you folks think the psychology of comma splices?  My sense is that even students who have a reasonable exposure to the written word just perceive them as 'correct.' Students who would never (or at least rarely) write a sentence fragment or run-on sentence will write comma splices. What's up with that?

Janet


-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of R. Michael Medley (ck)
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 11:45 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 'Bad' English

I apologize for leaving one of my sentences incomplete.  Here is my complete thought:

And although I don't like #3 either [(3) This is just between you and I.], it is extremely common, and I have even heard it in formal academic (oral) presentations.  I think the appearance of the nominative form of pronouns in a compound object construction like this is interesting because almost no speaker ever uses the nominative form in objects that are not compound.
 This phenomenon seems to signal something to us about the nature of compound NPs.  I think Pinker in The Language Instinct has something to say about this construction, but I can't find the reference.


R. Michael Medley, Ph.D.
Professor of English
Eastern Mennonite University

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