連用形 conjunctive - Grammar Discussion

English translation:
and, ing

Structure:
Verb[stem] + Phrase
い-Adjective[ ] + Phrase

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Satori Reader just posted a good video about this topic:

Is it necessary to have the comma between the clauses? There’s this sentence that I suspect to have 連用形 but I don’t see a comma there:

明治6年に日本政府は旧暦を改め現在使用している新暦に移行しました。

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Very unusual in modern Japanese to not use a comma I’d have thought. I’ve never come across the conjunctive in modern books where a comma is omitted.

Might be a typo in that text then.

I’m actually starting to see more examples of comma reduction.

そして、赤ちゃんはおなかがすくと、母乳を求め母を呼ぶ。

And another sentence yesterday that I forgot to take note.

I’ve had a look at the 連用形 page and all the example sentences have commas in them, and I can’t actually find your sentence there. Might be a case of just reporting an error with each specific case you find. Under which grammar point did that example sentence come up?

It’s in the text I came across in a JLPT reading book.

It might not be required as " 母乳を求め母を呼ぶ" is not a separate clause in this case. I had a wee thought as well where you wouldn’t use a comma with the informal conjunctive

買い物をしに行って、野菜を買ってきた。

You’d stick a comma after 行って as it is separating the clauses, but you wouldn’t stick a comma after 買って as they’re the same clause. I wonder if your 母乳 sentence would fall into this category.

Asked my wife (she’s a native speaker and wives are usually right anyway). She’s not sure that it is absolutely required, however its unusual to not have a comma, and in this sentence it doesn’t have any 違和感. Adding in the commas is apparently very common in business Japanese as its seen as making the sentence easier to read and therefore is considerate and polite which is pretty much essential in Japanese.

A penny for your thoughts @mrnoone or @pushindawood

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Commas are usually added in for pause to make things easier to understand, and to avoid misunderstandings. You can read more about this here:

Hope this helps!