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Zorluk: Çok zorDashes

The following passage is an excerpt from an essay on archaeological discoveries.

For decades, scholars believed that the clay tablets discovered at the ancient palace of Knossos were written in an indigenous, non-Greek tongue. However, in 1952, Michael Ventris proved this assumption wrong. Deciphering the Knossos tablets required Ventris to cross-reference thousands of character combinations—a process made significantly more difficult by the damaged state of the clay, and to construct a grid of grammatical relationships. Ultimately, his work revealed that the script, known as Linear B, was an early form of Greek.

Which of the following choices is the best version of the underlined portion of the sentence?

  1. A
    combinations—a process made significantly more difficult by the damaged state of the clay, and
  2. B
    combinations, a process made significantly more difficult by the damaged state of the clay; and
  3. combinations—a process made significantly more difficult by the damaged state of the clay—andCevap
  4. D
    combinations; a process made significantly more difficult by the damaged state of the clay, and

Cevap

The correct option is the one that sets off the parenthetical phrase with matching dashes on both sides, reading: 'combinations—a process made significantly more difficult by the damaged state of the clay—and'
The correct answer correctly uses a pair of dashes to set off the nonessential appositive phrase ('a process made significantly more difficult by the damaged state of the clay'). Nonessential elements must be set off with consistent punctuation at both ends. Since the parenthetical phrase begins with a dash, it must also end with a dash.

Adım Adım Çözüm

1
Identify the syntactic role of the underlined phrase.
The phrase starting with 'a process...' is a nonessential appositive that clarifies why the cross-referencing was difficult.
Nonessential elements must be set off from the rest of the sentence using punctuation marks such as commas, parentheses, or dashes.
2
Check for consistency in the punctuation marks wrapping the nonessential phrase.
The phrase starts with an em-dash after the word 'combinations'. Therefore, it must also end with an em-dash before 'and' to maintain consistency.
Mixing a dash at the beginning of a parenthetical phrase with a comma at the end violates the rule of punctuation pair consistency.
3
Verify that other punctuation marks like semicolons are not appropriate here.
Semicolons are incorrect because neither the appositive phrase nor the subsequent parallel infinitive phrase ('and to construct...') is an independent clause.
A semicolon is used to connect two independent clauses; using it to separate phrases creates grammatical fragments.

Anahtar Kavram

Punctuation consistency with parenthetical elements and dashes
Bu soruyu puanla

Konular

Dashes

Bu konudan daha fazla soru