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Difficulty: MediumCommas with Lists, Clauses, and Coordinate Adjectives

The landscape architect designed a quiet, secluded courtyard, it offered a peaceful retreat from the busy city streets. Which choice is the best version of the underlined portion?

  1. A
    NO CHANGE
  2. quiet, secluded courtyard, whichAnswer
  3. C
    quiet, secluded courtyard; which
  4. D
    quiet, secluded courtyard, that

Answer

The correct option is the one that uses a comma to separate the coordinate adjectives 'quiet' and 'secluded' and introduces the relative clause with a comma followed by 'which'.
The correct choice uses a comma to separate the coordinate adjectives 'quiet' and 'secluded' and uses ', which' to introduce the nonessential relative clause. This avoids the comma splice of the original sentence while maintaining proper punctuation rules for coordinate adjectives.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the relationship between the adjectives modifying the noun 'courtyard'.
The adjectives 'quiet' and 'secluded' are coordinate because their order can be reversed ('secluded, quiet courtyard') and they can be joined by 'and' ('quiet and secluded courtyard'). Therefore, a comma must separate them.
Coordinate adjectives require a separating comma to be punctuated correctly.
2
Analyze the grammatical structure of the clauses to identify any boundary errors.
The sentence contains two independent clauses: 'The landscape architect designed a quiet, secluded courtyard' and 'it offered a peaceful retreat...'. Joining these two clauses with only a comma creates a comma splice.
Independent clauses cannot be joined by a comma alone without a coordinating conjunction.
3
Evaluate the choices to resolve the comma splice while maintaining proper adjective and clause punctuation.
Using the relative pronoun 'which' converts the second clause into a dependent relative clause, which is nonessential and correctly preceded by a comma. The pronoun 'that' introduces a restrictive clause and cannot take a comma, while the semicolon option incorrectly punctuationally isolates 'which' into a fragment.
Selecting the relative pronoun 'which' resolves the comma splice and forms a grammatically correct sentence.

Key Concept

Identifying coordinate adjectives and correct punctuation at clause boundaries
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Topics

Commas with Lists, Clauses, and Coordinate Adjectives

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