Table Of ContentФЕДЕРАЛЬНОЕ АГЕНСТВО ПО ОБРАЗОВАНИЮ
ФГБОУ ВПО «АДЫГЕЙСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ»
А.В.Берестнева
ПУНКТУАЦИЯ. ОСНОВНЫЕ ПРАВИЛА
PUNCTUATION. BASIC RULES
УЧЕБНОЕ ПОСОБИЕ
МАЙКОП
2021
УДК 81.111’367(075.8)
ББК 81.432.1-22я73
Б-48
ISBN 978-5-907004-81-8
Печатается по решению Редакционно-издательского совета Адыгейского
государственного университета
Рецензенты:
Э.В.Бибикова, доцент кафедры иностранных языков ФГБОУ ВПО
«Майкопский государственный технологический университет», кандидат
филологических наук
М.М.Бричева, доцент кафедры английской филологии ФГБОУ ВПО
«Адыгейский государственный университет», кандидат филологических наук
Берестнева, А.В. Пунктуация. Основные Правила = Punctuation. Basic
Rules: учебное пособие на английском языке / А.В. Берестнева. – Майкоп:
АГУ, 2021. – 61 с.
Настоящее учебное пособие предназначено для студентов факультета
иностранных языков, изучающих английский язык на пороговом и пороговом
продвинутом уровне (В1-B2), в учебном процессе, а также для
самостоятельной работы студентов, аспирантов, изучающих английский
язык. Пособие составлено в соответствии с требованиями федерального
государственного образовательного стандарта высшего образования по
направлению подготовки 45.03.02 «Лингвистика» (квалификация (степень)
«Бакалавр»), направленность (профиль) «Теория и методика преподавания
иностранных языков и культур».
Данное пособие представляет собой совокупность дидактических
материалов направленных на реализацию компетентностного подхода в
обучении. В учебном пособии представлена система пунктуации английского
языка с описанием основных функций знаков препинания, а также
необходимая терминология изучаемого предмета. Каждый раздел
проиллюстрирован примерами из современных СМИ. В пособие включен
список контрольных вопросов, а также комплекс упражнений для
самостоятельной работы.
CONTENTS
Introduction 4
History of punctuation 5
Function of punctuation 9
Types of punctuation 11
Endmarks 11
Pauses 14
Parentheses and brackets 24
Connectors and dividers 29
Quotation marks and ellipses 40
Other symbols 46
Exersices 55
Test questions 57
Conclusion 58
References 59
INTRODUCTION
The English language has rules for setting punctuation marks. However,
they change over time, fluctuations in the norm are observed, associated with the
sphere of the use of language (scientific style and journalism), regions (English in
the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, etc.). There are two major styles of
English punctuation: American (commonly followed also in Canada) and British
(commonly followed also in Australia and New Zealand). Over the years, these
two styles have converged. Whichever option you choose, there is one universal
advice: stick to one option throughout the entire text, keep in mind that the main
criterion for literacy is clarity, clarity and unambiguity of the phrase.
HISTORY OF PUNCTUATION
Punctuation / "pointing": the word "punctuation" is derived from the Latin
word "punctus," translated "point"; punctuation is literally the use of "points," and,
until the sixteenth century or so, the English word for punctuation was "pointing."
Pointing was originally done in liturgical manuscripts as an aid in reading aloud,
especially by those whose knowledge of the language which they were reading
might be less than perfect; thus, pointing for reading aloud tends to correspond
quite closely to marking "pauses for breath," and it may, in fact, owe much to
musical notation for "breaths." It also tends to be much more thorough in Biblical
and liturgical manuscripts (from which readings aloud were done regularly in
churches and monasteries) than in secular texts. However, M. B. Parkes, in his
article on "Pause and Effect" in Medieval Eloquence (later expanded into a book,
Pause and Effect), warns that there is little consistency in scribal choices of when
and how to point a passage: "Medieval scribes and correctors punctuate when
confusion is likely to arise (if their Latin is sufficient to recognize the fact) and do
not always punctuate where confusion is not likely to arise, even when they are
concerned with the sententia literae ["literal meaning"]. ․ . ․ Elements which may
have a similar syntactic function or convey similar meaning, and which are
punctuated in one context, need not be punctuated in another when the context
ensures that confusion is not likely to arise" (pp. 138-139). Furthermore,
manuscript pointing may be added by anyone at any time: it might be authorial,
intended to clarify the author's intended meaning, or added by a scribe or a
corrector, and some manuscripts show considerable punctuation added at various
times by various readers as part of their response to the contents.
There is little literature on medieval punctuation, partly because there is so
much evidence which needs to be studied, and partly because editors of texts have
considered the effort needed to be a waste (since usually the pointing is not
authorial anyway). However, as Parkes's studies show, much can be learned about
scribal practices by studying the punctuation used in a manuscript.
Generally, manuscripts tend to be more lightly and less consistently
pointed than printed books (and with the exception of the punctus, virgule, and the
blank space, almost all of our modern marks of punctuation have come into use
only since the thirteenth century). Modern punctuation, designed to clarify
syntactic structures rather than to indicate breathings, is largely a Renaissance
invention, developing during the first generations of the printing press, and
codified in the eighteenth century (about the same time that capitalization and
spelling became fixed in more or less their current form). Among the earliest
works showing "modern" punctuation is Francis Bacon's Essays. An interesting
early discussion of the nature of modern punctuation can be found in Ben Jonson's
English Grammar (composed ca. 1617, printed posthumously in 1640).
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century punctuation practice varies considerably, but
tends to be "heavy"; current "light" punctuation is largely the invention of H. G.
and F. G. Fowler, The King's English.
The use of layout (putting each "line" of verse on a new line, using
indentations, etc.) to punctuate verse is an invention of the later Middle Ages
(probably introduced to the English by the French, from whom the English learned
rhyming and stanzaic forms, these being characteristics of French verse forms, not
of native English verse). Early English poetry (Beowulf, for instance) is written as
prose, filling each writing line to the margin before beginning a new line. Such
"prose-like" poetry also tended to be punctuated in much the same way that prose
was, except that the ends of poetic lines (and, in Old English verse, the ends of
half-lines) were usually marked with some sort of punctuation symbol. In later
Middle English manuscripts, when layout comes to be used to punctuate verse, it
was often considered to be all the punctuation that was necessary. Thus, with the
introduction of the use of layout as punctuation, other punctuation marks become
less common in verse, with several notable exceptions: a virgule is often used to
mark caesura within the line, the paragraphus or capitulum is used to mark the
beginning of stanzas, and a punctus elevatus at the end of the line often indicates
an unexpected continuation (enjambement) of the sensus into the next line rather
than an "end-stopped" line. [This paragraph is a summary of a portion of M. B.
Parkes's article.]
Littera notabilior: an enlarged letter (often in a "display" script) which is
used to mark the beginning of a new section (chapter, paragraph, sentence, stanza
or line of verse, etc.); can also be used for any "capital" letters.
Punctus (. or ‧): the placement (which could be at the baseline, in the
middle, or at the headline) was, according to a system elaborated by Isidore of
Seville (Etymologies I.20), significant: in early punctuation systems, it was placed
at the baseline to mark a pause in the middle of a sentence (roughly like our
comma), in the middle for a longer pause between clauses (roughly like our
semicolon), and at the headline for a long pause at the end of a sentence. With the
development of minuscule scripts, however, such relative heights are hard to judge,
and this set of distinctions is largely abandoned in the later Middle Ages, and ․ and
‧ are more or less interchangeable (usually used for a final pause, to mark the end
of a sentence). The punctus is the ancestor of our modern "period."
Punctus versus (which looks like a small "7" over a period; it can look like
a modern semicolon): usually used for a final pause, to mark the end of a sentence
(equivalent to a punctus).
Punctus elevatus (which looks like an inverted semicolon, with the tail
going up and to the left): used from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, and usually
used to indicate a major, medial pause (roughly equivalent to a modern comma or
semicolon), usually where the sensus is complete though the sentence is not (as,
for instance, between clauses of a sentence). It fell out of use in the fifteenth
century, though it has obvious connections with the modern semicolon. The
modern semicolon (Elizabethan "comma-colon" or "subdistinction") is a late
sixteenth-century development, as is the modern colon.
Punctus flexus (which can look like a tilde or a small "u" over a period): a
tenth-century invention, though it never came into common use; it was used to
mark a minor medial pause where the sensus is not complete (equivalent, then, to a
comma when separating phrases within a clause).
Punctus interrogativus (which sometimes looks like a tilde or just a
squiggle above a period): used to indicate the end of a question (rising intonation).
First appearing in the eighth century, it was not commonly used, since questions
were easily recognized from their syntax. The modern form (?) and usage is a
seventeenth-century invention.
Virgula suspensiva (/): in common use from the thirteenth to the
seventeenth century. Often used for short pauses (such as the caesura in the middle
of a line of poetry), but sometimes was used as equivalent to the punctus. It could
be made increasingly emphatic by doubling or even tripling. The comma as we
know it is a sixteenth-century development (the first known use in England was in
a book printed in 1521).
Colon (:): unusual in English manuscripts before the late fourteenth
century; it is used to mark either a full or a medial pause. Parkes indicates that,
from the late thirteenth century, the punctus elevatus is seen in some European
scripts without its ascending tail, and so takes on the appearance of a colon. The
use of this mark to indicate the end of a rhetorical "colon" (which gives the modern
mark its name) is an early modern development.
Parkes also distinguishes between the colon and the double punctus, which
looks similar but has a different origin and different usage. In some early pointing
schemes (not widely dispersed nor of long influence, but which can be seen in
some manuscripts, including English and Irish manuscripts, of the 9th and 10th
centuries) the duration of a pause was indicated by an increase in the quantity of
points: one punctus (.) indicated a short pause, a double punctus (:) indicated a
longer pause, and a triple punctus (჻) the longest pause (Parkes, Pause and Effect,
pp. 28, 42, 49, and Glossary under "colon" and "double punctus").
Hyphen (-): appears in English manuscripts starting in the late thirteenth
century; its only common medieval use is to mark words broken at the ends of
lines.
Parentheses or brackets (): a fifteenth-century invention, to mark
parenthetical material; they were curved in the opposite direction from modern
parentheses, and were usually accompanied by the underlining of the words
between the parentheses: )
Underlining ( _ ): is found in medieval manuscripts to mark quotations,
direct speech, or parenthetical material; it is also commonly used to highlight
proper names, and can be used as a form of expunction (to mark a word or words
for deletion).
Exclamation mark ( ! ): a modern invention, introduced in the
seventeenth-century.
Apostrophe ( ' ): the modern apostrophe is derived from a medieval mark
of abbreviation, a suspension mark indicating that some letters are missing (and
therefore we use the apostrophe to mark a contraction).
(‘’)
Quotation marks : an eighteenth-century invention. In medieval
manuscripts, underlining was sometimes used to indicate direct speech or
quotation, especially for Biblical quotations, but generally quotations were
indicated by rhetorical rather than graphic means.
Dash ( - ): an eighteenth-century invention.
Capitulum: the Latin "capitulum" means "head," and it gives us the
Modern English word "chapter" (the beginning or head of a new section of the
work). The chapter marker, a "C" with a vertical stroke, comes to be used not only
to mark chapter divisions, but also paragraph divisions (equivalent to the
paragraphus, "¶") and sometimes even sentence divisions (which is related to our
modern practice of "capitalizing" the beginning of a sentence).
Paragraphus (a "gallows-pole" or upper-case gamma, or § later ¶): used
to mark paragraph divisions.
Insertion signals: material missed was added between the lines or in the
margin, with the point of insertion marked with a caret (common from the twelfth
century on) or, sometimes, various "nota bene" signs, etc. The word "caret" means
"it is lacking."
Omission signals: there are several common ways of indicating that a
word or phrase was to be deleted: cancellation (crossing out), expunction (dots
placed below the words or passage to be deleted), vacation (enclosing passage
between the syllables "va" and "cat"; "vacat" = "it is void, empty").
FUNCTION OF PUNCTUATION
Punctuation as we know it is an Early Modern development, based upon
medieval systems of "pointing" texts. Punctuation can make an enormous
difference in the meaning of whatever it is you’re writing. Let’s face it: proper
punctuation can make or break the impact of an otherwise well-constructed
sentence. In this textbook we are describing 16 punctuation marks that are used in
everyday written English. We’ve categorized them together according to the
similarity of their function: (1) endmarks; (2) pauses; (3) parentheses and brackets;
(4) connectors and dividers; (5) quotation marks and ellipses; (6) other symbols.
Punctuation Mark English Variant Russian Variant
Endmarks
. Full stop (BrE) Точка
Period (AmE)
? Question mark Вопросительный знак
! Exclamation point Восклицательный знак
Pauses
