In this sentence “However ugly he may be, I believe he will one day find a girlfriend”, what phrase is “However ugly he may be”, is that a clause? If so, what kind of clause? Or is it actually a phrase? (“However” I use here as “to whatever extent/in whatever way”.)
Furthermore, I came across this in the Cambridge Dictionary: “You can do it however you like, it really doesn’t matter.”
Why is a comma used here? Those are two separate sentences, so there should be a period if you really want to be correct, right?
Greetings
Answer
Hi Amaury,
(1) ‘However ugly he may be’ is a ‘clause’. A ‘clause’ is a combination of at least one subject and verb; a ‘phrase’ is part of a ‘clause’. In ‘however ugly he may be’, the subject is expressed by the noun phrase (or ‘noun phrase’) ‘he’ and the verb phrase (or ‘verb phrase’) is ‘may be’.
‘However ugly he may be’ is more specifically a ‘subclause’. For differences between main and subordinate clauses I would like to refer you to this question: question 30562 />
(2) In the example you give, a comma is in any case better than a period, because the 2 sentences are really related. Neither in English nor in Dutch is it wrong to place a comma between 2 sentences. Some comments here:
– In the example you give, the 2nd sentence is an afterthought to the 1st sentence. In such cases, a comma or dash is often used (‘You can do it however you like – it really doesn’t matter’).
– You will more often find 2 commas between sentences in informal language than in texts from a formal register. (It sounds a bit more colloquial when you use commas between 2 sentences.) In more formal texts, you’re more likely to find ‘and’. Compare e.g. ‘We can write to the editor, ask him to consider the proposal’ (informal) – ‘We can write to the editor and ask him to consider the proposal’ (former).
Greetings,
an
Answered by
dr. An Verhulst
Linguistics
Prinsstraat 13 2000 Antwerp
http://www.uantwerpen.be
.