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At times, during commentary, commentators speak sentences like "Playing well, Victor is", "A great player, Steven was".

Jesse Pinkman
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  • 'A great player, Steven was.' is in the CompSV form, with an added comma to show where one would pause in speaking. 'Playing well, Victor is.' splits and re-orders the verb phrase. It is more informal, and better avoided in formal writing. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 14 '18 at 16:32
  • OK, thanks! Any suggestion on punctuation I used there? – Jesse Pinkman Mar 14 '18 at 16:37
  • The jurisdictional question is Which part has been moved? Has the subj + aux been moved to the end, or has the predicate phrase been moved to the front? Also, since this is spoken English, there are no punctuation standards; do what you think best. – John Lawler Mar 14 '18 at 16:54
  • This is spoken British English. – KarlG Mar 14 '18 at 16:59
  • This is Yoda Speak. There are online generators that will convert any regular sentence for you. ("Yoda speak, this is. Convert any regular sentence for you, there are online generators that will. Hmmmmmm.") – 1006a Mar 14 '18 at 17:43

1 Answers1

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It's grammatical but it's "marked", meaning that this word order isn't the normal declarative order but is chosen intentionally to create emphasis. Even then, it isn't usual, and I'm surprised by your implication that commentators are using it frequently. However, sometimes this order is used for humorous effect, as it reflects the sentence construction of the character Yoda in the Star Wars movies.

Your punctuation is correct.

Green Grasso Holm
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