hoji wrote:1) Plays by Aphra Behn performed by the Duke's company...
2) Plays by Aphra Behn, performed by the Duke's company...

What is the difference between the two?
What do you say BTGers?

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.

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...

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.

here is the whole text

hoji wrote:here is the whole text

That's why we need context. The problem with A isn't in the performed by the duke's company part, but in the following one: the commas separating the clause beginnig with "and" denote that clause as non-restrictive, meaning that the sentence can be read without it, but that conflicts with the purpose of the conjunction "and" which connects it with the previous restrictive clause "performed by the duke's men". D corrects that problem not by removing the comma, but by disconnecting the "and" link (think of an "and" as a "+" sign linking things together), leaving the two clauses to become restrictive or non-restrictive as needed.

Thank you, Geva! That was very helpful.