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comma/not before 'who' [relative pronoun]: Dr. Connors who's my

JungKim

Senior Member
Korean
Here's a quote from the Amazing Spider-Man:
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Peter Parker: Dr. Curtis Connors, he's a biochemist...
Captain Stacy: Of OsCorp?
Peter Parker: That's right.
Captain Stacy: Okay. Dr. Curtis Connors who's also my daughters mentor. Is that who you're talking about?
Peter Parker: That's the one.
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(For more context, see here.)

In line 4, there is no comma between "Dr. Curtis Connors" and the who relative clause.
And I noticed that the relative clause is actually modifies "Dr. Curtis Connors" rather than supplementing it.
So is this why the comma is not used there?
Placing a comma after "Connors" would have been a good idea, JungKim. Note that you are reading a dialog. Writers are often hard-pressed to write convincing spoken language while preserving the punctuation we are accustomed to seeing in text. The missing comma may well be nothing more than a small error.
I don't regard the missing comma as necessarily an error.
A proper noun usually is sufficient to uniquely identify a person or thing,
so a following relative clause is normally nonrestrictive (not necessary for identifying),
and so normally a comma is used.
But in this dialog it seems that Captain Stacy is not satisfied with "Dr. Curtis Connors" as a unique identification,
as if there could be more than one person with that name.
So I see how he could be using "who's also my daughters mentor" as a restrictive relative clause (without a comma).
He could have asked "Is it the same Dr. Curtis Connors who is my daughter's mentor?"
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