Placing commas and general punctuation

Hi Rodolfo,

Welcome to the Forum.

Suppose I have a sentence as the following:


I am so tired of singing , and have begun to sing less.


Is the comma in the previous sentence properly placed, Yes. You could omit it, but I prefer it.

and if so, what type of sentence is it.? It's a compound sentence, because it consists of two main clauses.

Notice that in the previous sentence I placed both a period and a question mark. What is wrong with the sentence? Just put a question mark, not both. Should that sentence take a question mark or a period at the end? How could I have written it properly? I mean would it be acceptable to write as follows:

Is the comma in the previous sentence properly placed. If so, what type of sentence is it? Yes, but with a question mark after 'placed'. You could also write it as Is the comma in the previous sentence properly placed and, if so, what type of sentence is it? I prefer this version.

Somehow, I feel uncomfortable with sentences like:

If so, what type of sentence is it? This is OK. It's really equivalent to writing it as If the comma in the previous sentence is properly placed, what type of sentence is it?

Best wishes, Clive

Hi,

I notice you refer to the following sentence as a compound sentence". By the way, in the previous sentence, should the period be inside the outer quote mark or outside? Opinions vary. I like it after the wuote mark. You are missing a quote mark at the beginning.


I am so tired of singing , and have begun to sing less. However, the second clause does not form a complete thought, but rather seems like a dependent clause to me.

I have begun to sing less seems like a complete thought to me, at least in terms of grammar. It's just that the second 'I' was omitted.

So, I think maybe what you meant was that the sentence could be written two different ways:
I am so tired of singing and have begun to sing less. Yes, this is OK. I wonder about this one because if I remember correctly you must seperate a dependent clause from an independent one with a comma I ouldn't say that is always true like so:
I am so tired of singing, so have begun to sing less.The red area is dependent I think. Yes, it is
or

I am so tired of singing, and I have begun to sing less. [compound/two independents] The omission of 'I', as I said, does not really alter the basic sentence structure.


In any case , I feel (like you have said Clive), that the following is correct, but I would sure like to know if it is considered a simple sentence.By the way, I wonder if the comma is acceptable outside the parenthesis. You don't need a comma, the parentheses are enough

I am so tired of singing and have begun to sing less. It's two main clauses joined by 'and', so it is a compound sentence.

Note that 'so' makes it clear that the second part of your example is the consequence of the first part. With just 'and', this is left to the reader to deduce. For all we know for sure, I am tired of singing, but must sing for the next five years since I have a contract, but am now singing less because I have developed throat problems.

Best wishes again, Clive