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Here is the sentence:

"General Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who just wrapped up a visit to Afghanistan, was asked whether he foresees North Korea taking military action soon.” Source(https://www.dailywritingtips.com/appositive-phrases-punctuation-problems/)

Here is the revised sentence

“General Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, who just wrapped up a visit to Afghanistan, was asked whether he foresees North Korea taking military action soon.”

The explanation is by combining the general’s title with the reference to his recent visit to Afghanistan, the sentence implies that more than one Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman exists; Dempsey is the one who had just returned from Afghanistan. The phrase “the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman” must be bracketed by a pair of commas to show that it is the first of two parenthetical phrases dividing the subject from the object: “General Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, who just wrapped up a visit to Afghanistan, was asked whether he foresees North Korea taking military action soon.”

Can someone explain to me the explanation? I just don't get it because there is only one chairman so even without a comma the sentence still makes sense to me.

kitcat
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    You were told wrong. the plural reference is to Joint Chiefs* of Staff* - there are several of *them, but General Martin Dempsey is their only* chairman, according to the implicatios of the cited text. Commas aren't relevant to that interpretation. – FumbleFingers May 16 '20 at 12:02
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    According to the conventional interpretation of restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses, this sentence (with the commas) is saying there is only one General Martin Dempsey. Had both commas been removed, it would be saying that there were at least two General Martin Dempseys, and the one being specified was the chairman who just visited Afghanistan (as opposed to the General Martin Dempsey who, perhaps, had been working in the Pentagon at the time). – Jason Bassford May 16 '20 at 17:19
  • i have edited my question to make clear my confusion hope you can address why is there a need for a comma after chairman. – kitcat May 17 '20 at 10:38

1 Answers1

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You were told correctly.

Despite Fumble’s reasonable assumption, it remains an assumption and there is no evidence in the sentence that there is only one chairman; it is quite possible that the chiefs have different chairmen for different committees. The sentence refers to the chairman who went to Afghanistan. Had there been a comma after chairman, we would understand that Dempsey is THE chairman, and that he had been to Afghanistan.

To answer your revised question, I add the following.

Edwin Ashworth helpfully refers to apposition. Apposition is a grammatical construction in which two elements, often noun phrases, are placed side by side, with elements serving to identify the first in a different way; the elements are said to be in apposition. Commas are very useful to make the apposition clear.

Here is an example of a mother with three following appositional elements separated by commas before we get to the sentence's verb "was". "My mother, a nurse, a midwife, and a survivor of the war, was a good woman".

In your modified sentence, there are now two following appositional elements that relate to Dempsey (General Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, who just wrapped up a visit to Afghanistan) before we reach the sentence's verb "was". The meaning is therefore now unambiguous and the sentence no longer implies that there might be other chairmen.

Anton
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  • The omission of the comma is probably an error; you correctly say that a defining relative clause is indicated by its omission. The fact that it is in an appositive perhaps renders it harder to analyse. – Edwin Ashworth May 16 '20 at 13:49
  • I can only agree wholeheartedly with your more formal analysis. Thank you. – Anton May 16 '20 at 13:52
  • i have edited my question to make clear my confusion hope you can address why is there a need for a comma after chairman. – kitcat May 17 '20 at 10:38