hoji wrote:EDIT: Slight difference as to restrictive / non restrictive clause. The comma may indicate that the following part of the sentence is merely additional information and not part of the main idea of the clause - the clause can be read without it. Without a comma, the clause "performed by the Duke's company" is used to "restrict / define" the previous noun - it serves to indicate that we're talking about those plays of Aphra Behn performed by the Duke's company, as opposed to plays of Aphra Behn performed by other people.
a little hard to digest...
What would be a logical continuation for each one?
Examples:
The plays, performed by the Duke's company, received rave reviews.
The main issue here are the plays and the reviews they've recieved. The clause separated by commas is merely additional information about the plays, but not really material to the clause.
The plays performed by the duke's company received rave reviews - far more than the plays performed by the clown Troupe.
In this version of the sentence, the clause isn't separated - it's an important part of the sentence. Specifically, it serves to to define which plays we're talking about here, which is why this version is much more "logically" continued with a comparison to other plays.
In this particular sentence, the difference is indeed minute - it won't be wrong to add the comparison to the first, non restrictive version - which is why I originally started by saying that there's not much difference. But tell me if the following sentence sounds right:
House, which have big gardens, are more expensive than houses which do not.
If you have a full question in context, post it, and we'll see whether restrictive / non restrictive clauses is the issue at all.
