Comma vs which

Question

Hi, everyone.Could you tell me whether the comma is more correct here than writing the relative pronoun "which"?A  diplomatic note is written in third person. It can be related to any issue, going on between the two countriesA diplomatic note is written in third person. It can be related to any issue which is going on between the two countries.Thanks!

BillJ · Accepted Answer

Ditch the comma: it is not a replacement for "which", and is quite wrong here.

[1] It can be related to any issue which is going on between the two countries.

[2] It can be related to any issue going on between the two countries.

The difference lies in the underlined clauses which modify "issue".

In [1] it's a straightforward relative clause, and in [2] it's a gerund-participial clause. Semantically, there's no difference to speak of, so they are interchangeable, though [2] is probably the preferred version for many people.

Some people call the gerund-participial clause in [2] a 'reduced' relative clause, but that's a misnomer, since there's no possibility of it containing a relative phrase (cf. the ungrammatical *it can be related to any issue which going on between the two countries.

Clive · Answer

Here are a couple of small additional comments.

If you want a sentence, say eg A diplomatic note is written in third person.

It seems to me clumsy to speak of an issue going on. I'd say that an issue exists between the two countries.

Clive

Comma vs which

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬