Does anyone have _Pause and Effect_?  As I recall, that book has some  
material on the history of punctuating relative clauses.

I agree with Bill, however:  the "rules" for nineteenth century  
punctuation are not the same as they are today.

Kathleen Ward
UC Davis
On Mar 25, 2008, at 11:52 AM, Spruiell, William C wrote:

> Michael:
>
> I'm fairly sure that the use of commas to mark nonrestrictive status
> wasn't established by that time -- certainly, most of the texts I've
> read from the early to mid 19th century use commas in a way that would
> strike modern readers as profligate (e.g. putting commas regularly  
> after
> any subject phrase that was more than a few words long, etc.). I also
> have not seen any reference to a rule connecting punctuation to
> nonrestrictive status in any of the early/mid 19th-century grammars  
> I've
> examined, although, to cough up a hackneyed line, absence of evidence
> isn't evidence of absence.
>
> Bill Spruiell
> Dept. of English
> Central Michigan University
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Edmond Wright
> Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 10:47 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: interpretation of a relative clause
>
>> Michael,
>
> The clause in question is undoubtedly restrictive; otherwise, the
> sentence
> would effectively read as follows:  'a review from a man, if fair and
> moderately favourable, is in all respects the best kind of review' --
> which
> has the unlikely implication that Darwin was a misogynist!
>
> Edmond
>
>
>
> Dr. Edmond Wright
> 3 Boathouse Court
> Trafalgar Road
> Cambridge
> CB4 1DU
> England
>
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Website: http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/elw33/
> Phone [00 44] (0)1223 350256
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I was recently re-examining a short letter written by Charles  
> Darwin in
>> 1860 to Asa Gray, since I had used an excerpt of it to discuss speech
> acts
>> and text type with my students. I began looking at the clause
> structures
>> and became puzzled by the relative clause in the passage quoted below
>> which is punctuated as a non-restrictive relative.  I began to wonder
>> whether this clause "who is not a convert" really has a restrictive
> force
>> to it and has been punctuated by Darwin in a way that would be
>> unconventional today. There is a clearly restrictive relative at the
> end
>> of the passage, so we see that Darwin does seem to make the
> distinction in
>> his punctuation.
>>
>> "What you say about my book gratifies me most deeply, and I wish I
> could
>> feel all was deserved by me. I quite think a review from a man,  
>> who is
> not
>> an entire convert, if fair and moderately favourable, is in all
> respects
>> the best kind of review.... It is the highest possible gratification
> to me
>> to think that you have found my book worth reading and reflection;  
>> for
> you
>> and three others I put down in my own mind as the judges whose
> opinions I
>> should value most of all."
>>
>> (1) How do you read "who is not a convert"?  Can you read it
>> non-restrictively?
>> (2) Were punctuation rules for restrictive vs. non-restrictive
> relative
>> clauses established by the mid-19th century?  Were/are there
> differences
>> between British and American punctuation of non-restrictive clauses?
>> (3) Could this instance be merely a Darwinian eccentricity?
>>
>> I might add that I just went back to the Gutenberg Project page where
> I
>> originally read this letter,
>> <http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/2llcd10.txt> and I searched  
>> the
>> text for occurrences of "which" and found that the punctuation in
> Darwin's
>> correspondence is pretty regular, though there are a couple of
> relative
>> clauses set off by commas that I find difficult to read as
>> non-restrictive.
>>
>> R. Michael Medley, Director
>> Intensive English Program
>> Professor of English
>> Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA 22802
>>
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