QUESTION:
Do either of the two sentences below need commas to set off the underlined adjective clause?
SENTENCES:
George Washington who was our first president was inaugurated on April 30, 1789.
George Washington is the president who is on the dollar bill.
Test #1: The pause test
Read each sentence out loud, pausing before and after the adjective clause. How does it sound?
George Washington [PAUSE] who was our first president [PAUSE] was inaugurated on April 30, 1789.
George Washington is the president [PAUSE] who is on the dollar bill.
If the pause sounds natural, use commas. If the pause sounds “funny,” don’t use commas.
George Washington, who was our first president, was inaugurated on April 30, 1789. [COMMAS]
George Washington is the president who is on the dollar bill. [NO COMMAS]
In theory, the Pause Test ought to work because nonrestrictive adjective clauses are essentially parenthetical. Pauses before and after parenthetical phrases are always acceptable (and often preferable).
However, I have no idea how well this test works in reality. I’m curious.
Test #2: The ‘more-than-one’ test
- Find the specific noun being modified by the adjective clause.
- If the noun refers to only 1 possible person, place, thing, etc., use commas.
- If the noun could refer to more than 1 possible person, place, thing, etc., and you need the adjective clause to tell you which person(s), place(s), thing(s), etc. the noun refers to, don’t use commas.
George Washington [NOUN BEING MODIFIED] who was our first president [ADJECTIVE CLAUSE] was inaugurated on April 30, 1789.
There is only one George Washington.* We don’t need the adjective clause “who was our first president” to identify which George Washington the sentence is talking about, so we use commas:
George Washington, who was our first president, was inaugurated on April 30, 1789.
The 2nd sentence is tricky.
George Washington is the president [NOUN BEING MODIFIED] who is on the dollar bill. [ADJECTIVE CLAUSE]
“Who is on the dollar bill” modifies the word “president.”
Could the noun “president,” inside this sentence, include more than one entity?
Yes.
Read the sentence without the adjective clause:
George Washington is the president….
Obviously, George Washington isn’t the president today, which means there are many variants of “president” that could apply to George Washington:
George Washington is…
…the president who is on the dollar bill
…the president who lived in Mount Vernon
…the president who established Thanksgiving as a national holiday
…the president who signed the Jay Treaty
Which one is he in this sentence? We need the adjective clause to identify which aspect of George Washington’s presidency the sentence is talking about, so “who is on the dollar bill” is a restrictive clause and we don’t use commas:
George Washington is the president who is on the dollar bill.
In sum: if the noun includes more than one possible entity, the adjective clause is restrictive and we do not use commas.
Trying the tests myself…
This page, at the Grammar Shed, has terrific examples and a helpful explanation of why the distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive modifiers can be so confusing.
I’ve just used both tests on one of their sentences (which has 2 relative clauses in a row):
I had the pleasure of “hand-talking” to a lemur which had just returned from Madagascar where it had lived for ten years.
For me, the pause test didn’t work especially well, but the more-than-one test worked just fine.
* Yes, I know there is very likely more than one George Washington in the world. However, in the context of this particular sentence, “George Washington” refers to presidents of the United States, and there is only one George Washington in that category. Ultimately, context determines whether an adjective clause is or is not necessary to identify which person(s), place(s), thing(s), etc. the sentence is talking about. That’s what makes this concept hard to teach and hard to understand.
