Lecture 10 Syntax and Punctuation. In the previous chapters it was mentioned already that speech exists in two main forms: oral and written

In the previous chapters it was mentioned already that speech exists in two main forms: oral and written. Prosody is very important for the understanding of oral speech. For the written speech punctuation marks are of equal importance. Prosody and punctuation function in speech as semiotic systems — the systems of signs which help to organize speech into logical and semantic order. Prosody and punctuation may also function on the metasemiotic level, thus fulfilling the function of impact.

There exist different systems of punctuation for different languages. In Russian, for example, punctuation is logical and obligatory. One must follow strictly the rules of punctuation. In the English language punctuation is much freer. It has not only formal-grammatical functions, but also semantic-stylistic. This does not mean, of course, that there are no rules of punctuation in English, but these rules leave much freedom of choice for the writer of a text.

There are two main functions of punctuation: division and specification. By means of punctuation marks we divide the text syntactically into meaningful syntactic units. Punctuation marks may also help to specify, to single out, to emphasize some elements within a text. For syntax most important are the following marks: period (or a full stop), indented line (paragraph), comma, semicolon, colon, dash, question mark, exclamation mark.

Full stop is used to mark off the borderlines between sentences. It is very difficult to give a precise definition of a sentence, but as many linguists note, sentences should be rather short and should have unity of thought. Another punctuation mark which is frequently used is a comma. There exist two types of rules in connection with the use of a comma: on the one hand, there are rules which should more or less be followed and which are rather conventional and, on the other hand, there are recommendations which may be used depending upon the preference of the author of the text. The first group includes the following: adverbial constructions, homogeneous parts or homogeneous constructions, appositions, tag questions, names or ranks in the case of address, separation of the utterance from the words with the meaning of speaking, references in the bibliographies. For example: