Punctuation is indeed the means by which we attempt to reproduce the pauses, changes of pitch, etc., that arise from grammatical features in what we say. For example, all appositional phrases and adjectival clauses that provide non-restrictive information are said at a lower pitch (compare 'The professor who had a bald head came in' -- picking out one professor from a group, 'restrictive', -- with 'The professor, who had a bald head, came in' -- one professor, additional non-essential information, 'non-restrictive') . The two commas are therefore essential in the writing and correspond to the change of pitch. Ask students to say the sentence in question and they will discover that their own brain already knows the difference between restrictive and non-restrictive, for they automatically say the non-restruictive clause at a lower pitch. Another example is the hyphen. Again one can show students that they already know about the presence of the hyphen for in saying one, the pitch always falls for the second part. I ask 'Which would you rather have, a half-baked pie, or a half baked pie?' The '-baked' is said at a lower pitch and with a slightly lower volume than 'baked'. The point originally was to distinguish an adjective that went with the other half of the hyphenated pair from the case where it governs the following noun: compare 'a white-hot tap' with 'a white hot tap'. The period (or full-stop, as we say in Britain) is obviously related to its grammatical function. Similarly for the comma separating an adverb clause at the beginning of a sentence from what follows. To omit all punctuation would suggest that one spoke like the Daleks in 'Doctor Who' -- that is, if you Americans are acquainted with Doctor Who! Edmond Wright Dr. Edmond Wright 3 Boathouse Court Trafalgar Road Cambridge CB4 1DU Tel.: 00 - 44 - (0)1223 350256 Email: [log in to unmask] Website: http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~elw33 To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/