Comma splices are cool, I think so.

[querido]

I think this is very interesting.

What factors in Chinese permit the construction of strings that appear to be equivalent to what in English would be comma splices? What should I be hearing in my mind's-ear as I read these? Is this a liberty that I should learn to use?

I *think* these are two good examples:

他的太太叫李方, 她已经两天没睡觉了。

His wife is called LiFang(.)She hasn't slept for two days.

你生了两个漂亮的孩子，他们都像你一样好看!

You birthed two beautiful children(.)They both resemble you- just as good looking!

In both of these, it might be the need or desire to preserve the pronoun reference (她 back to 太太 in the first one, 他 back to 孩子 in the second one) which would other wise be broken(?) or unaesthetically interrupted(?) by a period. In English, to make these flow together we would weaken these pronouns to "who", like this:

His wife is called LiFang, who hasn't slept for two days.

...two beautiful children, who both resemble...

So, I'll guess that what the Chinese reader sees is equivalent to "who". If so, this meaning should be added to the dictionary, or this function added to the grammar. I don't see it in my references.

I imagined a resolution for the above, but this one is different:

从几年以前开始，中国的爸爸妈妈就只能生一个孩子，中国人太多了，如果大家都生、生、生、生很多孩子，就会有人没地方住，没东西吃，这是一个大问题。

(Please excuse the casual translation, for argument's sake.)

Translation #1:

For some years now, Chinese parents have only been allowed one child (since) there are so many Chinese people (that) if everyone has many children, soon they will have nowhere to live and nothing to eat, which is a big problem.

Translation #2:

For some years now, Chinese parents have only been allowed one child(.) There are very many Chinese people(.) If everyone has many children, soon they will have nowhere to live and nothing to eat(.) This is a big problem.

I understand (to the extent that a beginner can) these hanzi strings as written, and don't need the connecting words of #1. Logically, I see it chopped into #2, the linkage between the short sentences being obvious. But, does the Chinese reader see something smoother, more like #1? If so, the phenomenon should be explained somewhere.

I wonder what effect it would have for the Chinese reader if this same book were chopped into these smaller parts, as in #2. Choppy? Intrusive? Condescending, as though written for children? Over-controlled?

If that previous long Chinese sentence is grammatically correct, then chopping it up, for grammatical analysis or to make whole-sentence-style flashcards for example, would lose *this* information about the different function of the comma in Chinese. If I don't find the governing rules in a book, I'll have to infer them over time.

[hidden12345]

The problem is that you're reading a Chinese sentence and thinking about it and analyzing it as if it were in English.

And there is a word for these "comma splices" you refer to: semicolon.

[anonymoose]

他的太太叫李方, 她已经两天没睡觉了。

His wife is called LiFang(.)She hasn't slept for two days.

In English, to make these flow together we would weaken these pronouns to "who", like this:

His wife is called LiFang, who hasn't slept for two days.

But in English you can also use the "comma splice":

他的太太叫李方, 她已经两天没睡觉了。

His wife, called Li Fang, hasn't slept for two days.

[querido]

The problem is that you're reading a Chinese sentence and thinking about it and analyzing it as if it were in English.

No, I'm observing that things are done differently in Chinese and looking for the governing rules. I haven't seen them.

And there is a word for these "comma splices" you refer to: semicolon.

I was referring to the error made, in English, when two complete sentences are separated by a comma, this is a comma splice. I did it in the thread title as a joke.

In Chinese, the rules about commas are different. My post was intended to start a discussion about what those rules are. Do you know them?

他的太太叫李方, 她已经两天没睡觉了。

His wife, called Li Fang, hasn't slept for two days.

Yes, that's good, but still leaves the 她 unexplained.

[yonglin]

Hey querido, where did you learn these comma rules in the first place? Are you a trained linguist? I never learnt rules for comma usage in any language I studied, neither in my native language nor when I learnt English as a second language. And well, not in Chinese either. I think the best way to pick up comma usage is by reading a lot.

Something I found quite funny when researching this:

... Comma has multiple uses. Its meaning [compared to some other punctuation marks] is more difficult to identify. It may be used to separate some juxtaposed clauses or phrases. Chinese natives usually use it at random....

reference here

Although there are structures in which commas are typically used, I have the feeling it's more a matter of style than grammatical correctness in Chinese. You might have noticed that Chinese "sentences" (i.e., those separated by 。) tend to be a lot longer than English ones. The article above states that based on corpus data, about 35% of punctuation marks (.,:;!? etc) in English are full stop and period. In Chinese, the corresponding figures are 15 and 61%, respectively. So trying to apply English punctuation rules to Chinese is probably not a brilliant idea.

Also, keep in mind that Chinese has not been a punctuated language for very long at all.

Read, read, read...

[YuehanHao]

Interesting statistics in the last post. Some time ago, I had a similar observation to the original post's that the grammatical error "comma splice" in English does not apply in Chinese. My own view is based on general experience reading Chinese sentences in textbooks. After all of my public school training, this grammatical construction really sticks out. I have to say that I feel guilty sometimes (and occasionally guilty pleasure) writing a sentence in Chinese using a grammatical form that is wrong in my native language (although the distinction is fairly cosmetic because a semicolon could just replace the comma or a conjunction could be added in English), and probably have an unnatural tendency to avoid such constructions. Similar bad habits occur in many people who try to acquire a foreign language I guess.

约翰好

[jiangping]

I don't think you're analysis of the first sentence is 100% correct, where you said the "," sort of stands for "who"(or, in other words, kicks off a relative clause). In Chinese the corresponding construction for that is just 的, and isn't put after the noun, like in English. I just sort of look at sentences like that as meaning: "His wife is called Lifang, AND she hasn't slept for 2 days". I'm just guessing though, so I may well be wrong on this!

Another possibly related point is how modern scholars have gone about putting punctuation into Classical Chinese texts. The general rule is that if the subject of the sentence is the same, just connect it with a comma, and if the subject of the sentence changes from the preceeding one, stick in a full stop. This definitely isn't a strict rule, but it seems to be pretty accurate. Perhaps a similar sort of "rule" is applied to modern Chinese punctuation too? Though this would already be disproved by your second sentence, errr...

[querido]

Hey, thanks everybody!

yonglin:

where did you learn these comma rules

In public school English class, like YuehanHao.

Chinese has not been a punctuated language for very long at all.

Oh. Oh yeah. Very interesting...

A device that might have developed to preserve orientation in an unbroken string of characters, is a timely repetition or restatement of the pronoun, pointing back to the subject again whenever the writer thinks the reader needs this reminder. And here might be a rule: if the writer is merely signaling again who is acting, and doesn't intend to start a new sentence, then he doesn't use a period! That is easy to understand.

YuehanHao: Those were my sentiments too.

jiangping:

"His wife is called Lifang, AND she hasn't slept for 2 days".

Good. So the dictionaries or grammars for English speakers at least should include something like this:

她 1. (pronoun) she 2. (conjunction) and

About the second half of your post... That rule you mention could be liberalized like this: If in these cases the "gist" or "intent" of the sentence continues into the next one, a comma is sufficient to connect them (exactly as we would use a semicolon). So, wherever we see what looks like a comma splice, we accept that the writer considered the sentences close enough in "intent" to connect as with a semicolon. I accept that. Thanks again everybody.