Should there be a comma in "what you make others feel about themselves, says a lot about you"?

Question

After seeing this quote in various places, I have noticed that some variants have a comma, whereas others do not.

With a comma:

"How you make others feel about themselves, says a lot about you."

Without a comma:

"How you make others feel about themselves says a lot about you."

In this case, I did not think that a comma would be necessary because they are not two different clauses. Please correct me if I am incorrect with this statement.

Another question I'd have that relates to this is if it possibly derived from an earlier version or a separate dialect of English where they would use a comma here.

Which one would be correct in this case? Why?

Answer 1

"How you make others feel about themselves" is a nominal clause, that is, it has the value of a noun in the sentence; it can sometimes be replaced by a noun, or more often by a noun phrase.

• The opinion others have of their person because of your interaction with them says a lot about you. (The part in italics is a noun phrase that has roughly the meaning of the nominal clause.)

A nominal clause can have the syntactical functions of nouns (subject, object,… ). In this sentence the nominal clause is the subject of the verb "say"; as it is not separated from the verb by any other element (for instance a clause) no comma should be used.

Answer 2

In a comment, John Lawler wrote:

No. There's no intonation curve here, just the end of a subject clause. If it's too long for you in subject position, extrapose it: It says a lot about you how you make others feel. That leaves just a dummy it subject and postpones the clause parse to the end, where it's easier. Oh, and whether somebody in the past might have used a comma is not only unknown but irrelevant. Commas are pronunciation, and it changes.