-1

My sentence in full length is "A case in point is Japan, they have experienced a drop of TFR from 3.44 in 1950 to only 1.55 in 2015."

Divide the sentence by comma into two parts, I would like to know these two parts can be linked together with the first part as dependent and the second part as independent.

Improve this question
2
  • 1
    A case in point is Japan: they have experienced a TFR drop from 3.44 in 1950 to only 1.55 in 2015. Use a colon, rather than a comma.
    – Lambie
    Commented May 22, 2019 at 19:00
  • Any grammatical declarative sentence may become a complement clause by putting that in front of it. However, in this sentence, the clause in question should be followed by a semicolon; this is a comma splice.
    – John Lawler
    Commented May 22, 2019 at 22:12

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

No.

A case in point is Japan.

This is an independent clause that can function as a complete sentence. It has a subject ("a case in point"), a verb ("is"), and a complement ("Japan"). This is an S-V-C sentence. As Jeff Blair explains ("SVC Sentence Pattern"), the complement describes the subject. This independent clause should be treated as such with appropriate punctuation, like a period (separating the clauses) or a colon (connecting the clauses that are directly related - see the UNC Writing Center website for more).

If you are joining two independent clauses, you need a coordinating conjunction like "for." Alternatively, you could make one of the clauses subordinate or dependent with a subordinate conjunction. (For more details see Robin L. Simmons, "The Coordinating Conjunction" and "The Subordinate Conjunction," Chomp Chomp). The result would look like this:

A case in point is Japan. They have experienced ... (separate sentences)

A case in point is Japan: they have experienced ... (colon joins two independent clauses)

A case in point is Japan, for they have experienced ... (two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction)

A case in point is Japan, since they have experienced ... (an independent clause joined to a now-subordinate clause by a subordinate conjunction)

Improve this answer
2
  • thank you, which way would you suggest?
    – Jiayu Li
    Commented May 22, 2019 at 20:50
  • I don't have a strong opinion either way. My own style tends towards the first and fourth, but the choice is largely up to context and style.
    – TaliesinMerlin
    Commented May 22, 2019 at 20:55

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .