commas, commas and more commas...

Hello All!

Well, as promised, here is another rule for comma usage!

Conditional sentences or, otherwise known as, “if” sentences:

I’ll go to the party if you go with me.

Conditional sentences are sentences discussing the consequences of certain actions. The above sentence is an example of a first conditional sentence, which generally refers to a potentially true condition.

It is made up of two parts:

I will go to the party – consequence clause/main clause

if you go with me. – condition clause/subordinate clause

As I have already mentioned previously when talking about subordinate clauses, starting a conditional sentence with the condition clause (or subordinate clause) is similar. If you start with the condition clause, you need to separate the two parts of the sentence with a comma. The above example does not do this because it starts with the consequence clause (or main clause). Turn it around, and you get:

If you go with me, I’ll go to the party.

Here are a few more examples:

If I had known the weather was going to be bad, I would have brought a sweater.

If I were you, I would call a lawyer.

If you heat water to 100° C, it boils.

So, that should be pretty clear now, shouldn’t it?

Hope it helps!

Julia