“When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146
19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was a master of being obscurely profound. Though this makes his writing rich in interpretation, it makes his thought difficult to understand. So how do we understand what appears to be so profound? Start with what’s simple: the comma. In this post, we’ll look at three ways this little wonder can combine and separate clauses, giving you the power to manipulate the meaning of sentences and best express what you want to say.
1. Between a dependent and independent clause:
We see this use of the comma in Nietzsche’s quote:
Ex.) “When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”
The comma separates the dependent clause, “when you look into an abyss,” from the independent clause, “the abyss also looks into you.”
An independent clause can stand as a sentence on its own, having at least a subject and an intransitive verb (an action and something doing that action) but often having a subject, verb, and object (an action, something doing that action, and something to which that action is done).
A dependent clause cannot stand on its own and requires something to complete it.
2. Between independent clauses
Two independent clauses separated by only a comma is called a comma splice.
Here is an example of what NOT to do with two independent clauses:
Ex.) “I found a wild Thesis Essayus in RBD today, I obliterated the awful thing.”
The best way to use a comma between two independent clauses requires a coordinating conjunction. Each of these conjunctions is signified in the acronym FANBOY (For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet). If your first independent clause precedes a comma and a conjunction, then you can slap your second independent clause on the end without suffering the slightest grammatical qualm. Just make sure the independent clauses aren’t too unrelated, such as:
Ex.) “I found a wild Thesis Essayus in RBD today, and the abyss also looks into you.”
*Commaless Bonus Tip: You can use a coordinating conjunction to combine an independent clause with a dependent clause without a comma.
Ex.) “I looked into an abyss and felt like it was judging me.”
Just make sure this doesn’t create confusion or skew obscure the sentence’s meaning.
3. With nonrestrictive clauses
Nonrestrictive clauses are clauses that, if removed, would not change the meaning of the sentence.
Ex.) “Friedrich looked into an abyss, which was wonderfully beautiful, and was scared.”
In this example, “which was wonderfully beautiful” is a nonrestrictive clause. It does not specify into which abyss Friedrich looked, and neither the subject nor object change if we remove it. Nonrestrictive clauses, as we see above, are set off by commas, one on each side.
If we were to say:
Ex.) “Friedrich looked into an abyss that was wonderfully beautiful and was scared.”
“That was wonderfully beautiful” is a restrictive clause, specifying into which abyss Friedrich looked. If we removed this clause, the meaning of the sentence would change, for then we would not know that Friedrich looked into the wonderfully beautiful abyss. There could be several abysses, and, without the specifying quality of the restrictive clause, Friedrich could have looked into any one of them.
We’ve covered three important ways that commas function with clauses, independent, dependent, restrictive, and nonrestrictive. The little marvel-mark has given us a base for discovering the profound by exhibiting some of its own power, but what do we do to further understand Nietzsche’s quote, his writings, and all of German Philosophy? Unless you want to dive head first into the abyss, I advise moving on to another simple mark: the period.
Sincerely,
Carson
