TPS News

Corrected sentence:
“The conundrum, which is undisputed among scholars, is that none of the writers of that period were faithful to the strict, traditional rules governing Latin-based syntax.”

This sentence contains four punctuation errors. The dependent clause near the front of the sentence—“which is undisputed among scholars—requires a comma at the front and rear of it. One way to identify the need for a comma is the word “which.” A phrase beginning with “which” always must be separated from the rest of the sentence, as opposed to a similar phrase beginning with the word “that.” The third error is the lack of a comma between “strict” and “traditional.” Combinations of adjectives must be separated. The final error is the absence of hyphenation for the compound adjective “Latin-based.” With the proper punctuation in place, the eye races through the sentence.
本句標點有四個錯誤。首先，句子前半的從屬子句－「which is undisputed among scholars」（學者均認為無庸置疑）前後應該加逗號。要知道是否需加逗號，可以從「which」這個字判斷，以「which」開頭的詞組必須和句子其他部分分開，相較之下，以「that」為首的類似詞組就沒有這個必要。第三個錯誤是「strict」和「traditional」之間也少了逗號；兩相鄰的形容詞也一定要分開。最後則是複合形容詞「Latin-based」之間少了連字號。標點符號用得好，句子讀起來就流暢了。