On Thu, 16 Jul 1998, William J McCleary wrote:
> Johanna:
>
> I disagree that the student wrote fragments here. She's a graduate student,
> an excellent writer, and had no fragments of any other kind in her entire
> master's thesis. Furthermore, she put those commas after the introductory
> words. While I realize that other students occasionally and mistakenly put
> commas after subordinate conjunctions, I'm sure that such is not the case
> here. I'm sure that she sees "albeit" and "though" as conjunctive adverbs.
> I have a friend who uses "too" in the same type of situation.

I'm very familiar with the usage of 'too' as a conjunctive adverb. So far
as I know, it is used (albeit infrequently) in formal writing.
>
> So if I'm right and these are intended as conjunctive adverbs, this is
> still an error because they can't be used that way. Is that your take on
> the issue?

I don't think we disagree. They 'can't be used that way' because they are
subordinating conjunctions for most of us. Maybe their status is changing
in a younger generation or some particular community. So far as I know,
they are not yet usable as conjunctive adverbs in the formal register of
Standard English. So technically, they are a common kind of fragment -- an
indpendent clause punctuated as if it were an independent clause. The
comma after the conjunction is part of the punctuation error.

You're right -- the student's use of commas after the conjunction, and the
absence of other fragments in her writing, indicate that she intended them
as conjunctive adverbs. But her intention conflicted with the way most
writers of formal English categorize these words. I'm going with how we
would technically classify the error as seen through the eyes of a reader.

Too bad you couldn't be in Seattle. It was fun putting faces and
more-complete personalities to the names I've been seeing all these
months!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics              ~
English Department, California Polytechnic State University   ~
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407                                     ~
Tel. (805)-756-2184     Fax: (805)-756-6374                   ~
E-mail: [log in to unmask]                           ~
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