Quite irrelevant question, but also quite annoying not to know.
If I want to suppress a relative clause by writing parenthesis around it, can I delete the comma? That is, like in the following example:
[…] Mädchen (das schon seit langem da wartete).
I guess you will tell me "well, look how we deal with them in other languages" – and you'd have a point. But comma (in German) doesn't equal comma (in other language), because of the strict punctuation in relative sentences in German.
I mean, firstly, I thought there were only two possibilities:
a) […] Mädchen (, das schon seit langem da wartete).
b) […] Mädchen, (das schon seit langem da wartete).
I was 99% sure that b) would be the right option, because a) looks really ugly. But content in parenthesis can sometimes be thought of as things, after whose removal the sentence still has to make sense:
a) […] Mädchen. [does make sense after removal of the relative clause]
b) […] Mädchen,. [dropping the clause leads to nonsense punctuation
,.
]
Hence considering a) isn't that crazy. But neither of these options convinces me, which originates the question.