Every once in a while, I will come across a type of sentence construction in which a nested dependent clause is punctuated with a comma at the beginning but not at the end of the clause. For example:
David Davis, when asked by a House of Commons committee to explain why he had failed to provide anything adequately resembling the Brexit impact assessments that had been demanded by parliament fell back on an extraordinarily devious defence. (The Guardian)
My gut feeling tells me that, because it is a nested dependent clause, it should have been
David Davis, when asked by a House of Commons committee to explain why he had failed to provide anything adequately resembling the Brexit impact assessments that had been demanded by parliament
,fell back on an extraordinarily devious defence.
Am I correct? If not, could anyone shed some light on this matter?
Answer
Yes, both commas are needed. Each comma represents one end of a parenthetical phrase -- they could be replaced by '(' and ')'.
The only way to use a single comma would be to move the parenthetical phrase (also called an adverbial phrase or dependent clause) to the beginning or end of the sentence.
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