Here's the sentence example:
And Lucy, she often goes for a run.
And Lucy; she often goes for a run.
Which is more appropriate?
Thank you.
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1Does this answer your question? "We went swimming later in the afternoon, Jack and I." << My Uncle Will hates the Dodgers a lot. (Base sentence) → My Uncle Will, he hates the Dodgers a lot. (Left-Dislocation of Subject NP) >> [J Lawler] All examples use commas.– Edwin AshworthCommented Feb 13, 2022 at 16:08
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@EdwinAshworth It's not a duplicate. Someone could (maybe should) base an answer to this question with a corpora search for what punctuation is used, which doesn't answer the other question (not to mention the fact that it's about the opposite type of dislocation).– Laurel ♦Commented Feb 14, 2022 at 17:36
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@Laurel The query is not 'Do you agree that this is a duplicate question?' but 'Does this answer your question?' which few would argue can be answered by 'No'. JL's answer is thorough, and it would be hard to approach it for quality, never mind better it. ELU is primarily aimed at providing a reliable database free of bloat, for competent users. Slight tweaks on questions give rise to too much bloat, making the site very hard to search.– Edwin AshworthCommented Feb 14, 2022 at 20:13
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1 Answer
This is left dislocation, but with the conjunction and at the start of the sentence (as it often is in informal writing). This structure takes a comma, not a semicolon:
Since Haj Ross's 1967 dissertation Constraints on Variables in Syntax, this construction has been known as "left dislocation". Haj's examples (pp. 422-451) included:
The man my father works with in Boston, he's going to tell the police that the traffic expert has set that traffic light on the corner of Murk Street far too low.
My father, he's Armenian, and my mother, she's Greek.
My wife, somebody stole her handbag last night.
Sometimes you can find it punctuated with a question mark (indicating that the first part intoned as a rhetorical question) or an ellipsis (indicating a pause or even hesitation).
