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I know that a comma in front of the conjunction 'and' is usally set when and is connecting two independent clauses.

I can't decide, though, if the second part of the following sentence is, in fact, an independent clause:

Boredom comes, and unsolicited thoughts

I know that verb-only predicates exist, but does the adjective here count as a predicate so that I end up with two independent clauses?

edit: note that I would very much like to set the comma. I'm not looking for ways to spare me the comma.

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  • "Boredom comes, and with it, unsolicited thoughts." Commented Oct 18, 2018 at 15:50
  • @MarkHubbard so far so good but it alters the sense of the sentence, if only ever so slightly. Commented Oct 18, 2018 at 15:55

1 Answer 1

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It is elliptical.

Boredom comes and unsolicited thoughts [come].

The second clause is rather a kind of afterthought.

Bad things happen, and good things.

With the parallelism of the clauses the main verb of clause #1 is understood to be present in clause #2, even if the grammatical number of the subject is not the same:

Bad things happen, and a good thing happens too, now and then.

The entire verb phrase is understood in clause #2.

Three men went into a movie theater, and one dog.

Can't this be done in German too?

Drei Maenner sind ins Kino gegangen, und ein Hund.

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