English Language & Usage Asked by physu on April 1, 2021
I am struggling to properly use commas in the following sentence.
It was the invention of integrated circuits in 1949 which made the
smartphones that we use today possible.
I think I should right it as:
It was the invention of integrated circuits in 1949 which made the
smartphones, that we use today, possible.
But I am not sure about it. Please help me with this.
If you follow the convention that is commoner in American English, which I suggest you do, defining clauses are linked by the relative pronoun “that”, which is never preceded by a comma, and descriptive clauses are linked by the relative pronouns “which” and “who”; “which” and “who” are always preceded by a comma and their clauses end with a comma (or full stop.)
All the subordinate clauses in the example are defining clauses, thus “that” is used throughout and there are no commas:
{It was the invention of integrated circuits in 1949} [that] made {the smartphones [that we use today]} possible.
“It” is the preparatory or dummy “it”
The first “that” is a pronoun with the referent “it” and "it" has the referent “the invention of integrated circuits”
The sentence can be restated as either
The invention of integrated circuits was in 1949. That invention of integrated circuits made possible the smartphones that we use today.
Or
The invention of integrated circuits [in 1949] made {the smartphones [that we use today]} possible.
Answered by Greybeard on April 1, 2021
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