My adult ESOL students love the "Dear Abby" advice column, and I came upon this sentence in today's column:
The
problem is, I'm not attracted to him.
Should the comma be there?
Like me, I'm guessing your first response is no, since a comma between a verb and its complement (or object) is nonstandard.
On further thought, I'm not so sure.
There are two ways of reading those words. One is with unstressed "is" and no pause between "is" and "I'm." If the comma is omitted, a reader is likely to assume this reading.
The sentence can also be read, however, with stress on "is" and a pause before "I'm." The case for the comma is:
(1) A writer can't invoke this reading without the comma, and
(2) This reading is equivalent to "To my chagrin, I'm not attracted to him"--i.e., "The problem is" could be considered adverbial, making the comma appropriate.