--- title: Commas: lists, clauses and clarity — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Commas: lists, clauses and clarity», a lesson of the english course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A comma is a tiny signpost that tells the reader where one part of a sentence ends and the next begins, so the words are grouped the wa --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/) / Commas: lists, clauses and clarity # Commas: lists, clauses and clarity Lesson 33 of the english course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/0/) — A comma is a tiny signpost that tells the reader where one part of a sentence ends and the next begins, so the words are grouped the way you meant. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/1/) — The famous joke shows its power: "Let's eat, Grandma!" invites Grandma to dinner, while "Let's eat Grandma!" puts her on the menu; one little mark saves a whole gran. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/2/) — Commas separate items in a list ("apples, bananas and grapes"), follow an opening phrase ("After school, we went to the park"), and wrap extra information in a pair, like two hands holding it: "Sam, my friend, came round." - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/3/) — But a comma is not glue: "It was raining, we went inside" sticks two whole sentences together with only a comma, which is called a comma splice; use a full stop, a joining word such as "so", or a semicolon. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/4/) — Commas are not sprinkles either: "The, dog, ran, quickly" is just noise; and in texts people use them loosely ("omg, wait, lol, ok"), which is fine for texting, while school writing follows the rules. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/5/) — Commas separate the items in a list: "I bought apples, bananas and grapes." - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/6/) — A comma before the final "and" in a list is called the Oxford comma; most British schools leave it out, but it is not wrong and it can stop confusion. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/7/) — A comma goes before or after the name of the person you are talking to: "Let's eat, Grandma!" - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/8/) — A comma usually follows a fronted adverbial, an opening phrase that tells when, where or how: "After school, we went to the park." - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/9/) — A comma follows a subordinate clause that comes first: "When it rained, we went inside." - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/10/) — Extra information in the middle of a sentence is wrapped in a pair of commas: "My sister, who is 12, likes horses." - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/11/) — Joining two complete sentences with only a comma is a comma splice; use a full stop, a semicolon, or a joining word like "so" or "but". - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/12/) — Before "however" joining two sentences, use a full stop or a semicolon, with a comma after it: "It rained; however, we played." - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/13/) — Commas do not go between every word; too many commas make writing harder to read. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/14/) — Yes and no at the start of an answer are followed by a comma: "Yes, I can come." - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/15/) — A comma also cuts off a little tag word added at the end, like "eh" or "innit": "It's cold, eh." - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/16/) — Big numbers often use commas to group digits in threes: 1,000 and 25,000. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/33-commas-lists-clauses-and-clarity/17/) — Liverpool and Manchester speakers say "our kid" for a brother or sister and "me mam" for my mum; in formal writing these become "my brother" and "my mum". - ← previous: [Active and passive voice, modal verbs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/32-active-and-passive-voice-modal-verbs/) - next →: [Apostrophes: missing letters and belonging](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/34-apostrophes-missing-letters-and-belonging/) - ↑ back to [English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/english/)