I'd like some help regarding dependent and independent clauses in English

[iAteYourDog]

I've been proofreading a friend's thesis, and I've encountered an issue. Punctuation is really friggin' hard, and I can't always figure out whether a sentence needs a comma, so I tried learning more about the issue by looking into the hard rules on when to use a comma and when not to.

According to what I read online, if two independent clauses (parts of the sentence that can be placed out of context without any problems) are joined together, you are to add a comma in between. For example: "I went to the mall, but forgot to get socks."
The thing that I've been struggling with is identifying whether a clause is dependent or independent in practice. For example this following sentence:

"The amount of earners whose earnings are imputed make up less than 1% of the sample for virtually all years after 1951, and it can therefore be concluded that the data for the bottom 99% is of high quality and can be used for mobility measures."

"The amount of earners whose earnings are imputed make up less than 1% of the sample for virtually all years after 1951." This sentence seems like a fairly clear case of an independent clause, as it can easily be seen as its own sentence.

However, the second part of the sentence is in a bit of a gray area for me.
"It can therefore be concluded that the data for the bottom 99% is of high quality and can be used for mobility measures."

At first this part seemed like an independent clause as well, but then I spotted the "therefore". "Therefore" refers to another sentence, so it wouldn't really work out of context... Or would it?

So, my question is: Is the second part of the sentence an independent or a dependent clause, and why? And does the sentence require a comma after 1951?
I hope someone with some knowledge in this subject can help me with this. Thanks for your time.

[Iversen]

"I went to the mall, but forgot to get socks." (...)
"The amount of earners whose earnings are imputed make up less than 1% of the sample for virtually all years after 1951."

The first thing to notice is that "forgot" in the first example doesn't have its own subject, but shares it with the verb "went". So the part from "forgot" to "socks" is definitely not an independent sentence. WIth most conjunctions this would keep you from using a comma, but "but" has its own rules - here you should generally use a comma (unless "but" is used with the meaning "except", i.e. as a kind of preposition: "everything but socks"). With "and" you would not insert a comma, and notice that even with a semantically related word like "however" you would either drop the comma or (more likely) repeat the subject and start a whole new sentence: "I went to the mall. However I forgot to buy socks."

In the second example "whose earnings are imputed" is a relative clause, and relative clauses are by definition subordinate in a 'higher order' sentence. They can be restrictive or just parenthetical. As a rule of thumb you could say that if the clause restricts the amount or number of elements in the nominal phrase in which it is included then the relative clause is restrictive, and then you should NOT put commas around it. If it is parenthetical then you can, but in English most people would use as few commas as possible (unlike German and Russian, where the general rule is to delimit all relative clauses with commas). In the concrete case you only refer to the earners whose earnings have been imputed, not to all possible earners, so here the relative clause is restrictive.

You could make it parenthetical for instance by using the relative clause to specify how you got the necessary data: ""The amount of earners(,) whose earnings were imputed by secretly using data from the tax system(,) make up less than 1% (...). Now all earners are included, leaving aside only the non-earners.

OBS: The following paragraph should not be read unless you want to get your grammatical notions bungled up..

And just to complicate things: you could write "The amount of earners (whose earnings are imputed) make up less than 1% (..."). Here it is also only the earners whose earnings have been imputed who are relevant, but you add the restriction between parentheses to indicate that it is a truism, which really shouldn't be necessary to state explicitely in a text destined for intelligent readers - you just add it just to be sure that everyone gets it. Please notice the comma after "truism" in the sentence I just wrote. It is not necessary to put it, but I did so to stress that it is a truism that it shouldn't be necessary to state explicitely that the researchers only have included the earners for whom they have been able to obtain the relevant data. So "which ..." is a parenthetical relative clause.

[rdearman]

I've been proofreading a friend's thesis, and I've encountered an issue. Punctuation is really friggin' hard, and I can't always figure out whether a sentence needs a comma, so I tried learning more about the issue by looking into the hard rules on when to use a comma and when not to.

According to what I read online, if two independent clauses (parts of the sentence that can be placed out of context without any problems) are joined together, you are to add a comma in between. For example: "I went to the mall, but forgot to get socks."
The thing that I've been struggling with is identifying whether a clause is dependent or independent in practice. For example this following sentence:

"The amount of earners whose earnings are imputed make up less than 1% of the sample for virtually all years after 1951, and it can therefore be concluded that the data for the bottom 99% is of high quality and can be used for mobility measures."

"The amount of earners whose earnings are imputed make up less than 1% of the sample for virtually all years after 1951." This sentence seems like a fairly clear case of an independent clause, as it can easily be seen as its own sentence.

However, the second part of the sentence is in a bit of a gray area for me.
"It can therefore be concluded that the data for the bottom 99% is of high quality and can be used for mobility measures."

At first this part seemed like an independent clause as well, but then I spotted the "therefore". "Therefore" refers to another sentence, so it wouldn't really work out of context... Or would it?

So, my question is: Is the second part of the sentence an independent or a dependent clause, and why? And does the sentence require a comma after 1951?
I hope someone with some knowledge in this subject can help me with this. Thanks for your time.

Personally I would do it this way. I put commas around "whose earnings are imputed" and remove all the serial commas around the conjunctions. You don't say if this thesis will be read by an American or someone else. Typically British, Irish, Australian, Canadians do not use serial commas and their use if frowned upon.

Code: Select all

The amount of earners, whose earnings are imputed, make up less than 1% of the sample for virtually all years after 1951 and it can therefore be concluded that the data for the bottom 99% is of high quality and can be used for mobility measures.

I would also remove the word "that" since 99% of the time it is not needed as in this case. If it was me I'd remove the word therefore because it doesn't add anything to the meaning. BTW you can also use a semi-colon to divide this sentence. Because:

• A semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought.
• When a semicolon is used to join two or more ideas (parts) in a sentence, those ideas are then given equal position or rank.
• Use a semicolon between two independent clauses that are connected by conjunctive adverbs or transitional phrases.

So I would end with this:

Code: Select all

The amount of earners, whose earnings are imputed, make up less than 1% of the sample for virtually all years after 1951; it can be concluded the data for the bottom 99% is of high quality and can be used for mobility measures.

That is me, you're mileage may vary. But here a semi-colon might be your friend.

[tarvos]

I'd use a full stop and start the second sentence with therefore (and add a comma after). I like having therefore in there - it shows that one is a consequence of the other.

[smallwhite]

"It can therefore be concluded that the data for the bottom 99% is of high quality and can be used for mobility measures."

At first this part seemed like an independent clause as well, but then I spotted the "therefore". "Therefore" refers to another sentence, so it wouldn't really work out of context... Or would it?

That's an independent clause (with a dependent clause). You doubt because "therefore refers to another sentence", but whether a word in a clause refers to another sentence is not a test for clause dependency. "He saw her" doesn't tell you who "he" and "her" are, the same way "therefore" doesn't tell you what the reason is, but that doesn't make "He saw her" a dependent clause.

I will eat yours because you ate mine. --- complete
I will eat yours because of that. --- complete
I will therefore eat yours. --- complete

Nothing has changed.

I would write:
"... after 1951. It can therefore be concluded that..."

[iAteYourDog]

Thanks a lot, everyone. You guys are so smart! It's quite intimidating, really.
I truly appreciate you spending your time on my question, it's helped me loads.

[Jbean]

The "and" and the "but" are your clues. "And" is a coordinating conjunction. "A and B" does not require a comma. A list of three or more entries, though, requires one or more commas "A, B and C" or "A, B, and C" according to your nationality.

"But" is a subordinating conjunction. "A, but B".

"The amount of earners whose earnings are imputed make up less than 1% of the sample for virtually all years after 1951. It can therefore be concluded that the data for the bottom 99% is of high quality and can be used for mobility measures." Would be my choice of punctuation, but the comma after 1951 could also simply be removed to make a correct, but long and unwieldy sentence.

[smallwhite]

Personally I would do it this way. I put commas around "whose earnings are imputed"....

> The amount of earners, whose earnings are imputed, make up less than 1% of the sample for virtually all years after 1951

Putting commas there turns the restrictive clause into a non-restrictive clause, and changes which earners are referred to.

No commas
Only earners whose earnings are imputed. Does not include earners whose earnings are not imputed.
The sentence means:
"The amount of earnings-imputed earners (and not the non-imputed earners) make up less than 1% of the sample...."
and implies:
"The amount of earners whose earnings are NOT imputed make up 99% of the sample".

With commas
All earners. Both earners whose earnings are imputed and earners whose earnings are not imputed.
The sentence becomes:
"The amount of earners make up less than 1% of the sample. Their earnings of all of them are imputed, by the way".

I believe there should be no commas.

[smallwhite]

"But" is a subordinating conjunction.

I believe "but" is a coordinating conjunction.