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Chapter XL»!
PUNCTUATION
Though punctuation is not in itself part of the grammatical structure of a language, it cannot be passed over in silence in a treatise on grammar, as it may, and often does, acquire grammatical significance. The other layer of language with which punctuation is connected is of course its phonetic layer, namely intonation.
In different languages the relations between punctuation, intonation, and grammar (syntax) may be different, that is, punctuation may tend to indicate intonation to a greater or to a smaller extent. It certainly always has something to do with grammar. Now from this viewpoint it may be said that in English punctuation is connected with intonation to a greater extent than in Russian. Without going into details at the moment, we may content ourselves with recalling one fact. In Russian there is a strict principle saying that a subordinate clause is always marked off from its head clause by a comma. Thus, practically speaking, if there is no comma in a sentence, we may be certain that there is no subordinate clause in it. In English, on the other hand, there is no such general principle: sometimes a subordinate clause is not separated from its head clause by any punctuation mark whatsoever. This, for instance, is the case in the following sentence: Only now, because of the fact that she felt that she needed a new hat to go with the coat, she decided to say that it cost one hundred and twenty-five instead of one hundred and fifteen. (DREISER) There are several subordinate clauses here which are not marked off by any commas, namely, (1) that she felt (an appositional clause to fact). (2) that she needed a new hat to go with the coat (an object clause to felt). (3) that it cost one hundred and twenty-five instead of one hundred and fifteen (an object clause to say). The absence of commas here is due to the fact that in actual speech there is no intonational break between the subordinate clause and its head clause in any of these cases (this of course has to be ascertained by phonetic experiment and analysis). There are only two commas in the sentence, namely after now (this comma marks the beginning of the loose adverbial modifier because of the fact... with all the subordinate clauses belonging to it), and another after coat, to mark the end of the whole group. Thus from the number of commas no deduction could be made about the number of subordinate clauses found within the sentence.
This general characteristic of English punctuation as distinct from Russian should be kept in mind in dealing with it.
We will no longer speak of the intonational value of punctuation and we will concentrate on its grammatical significance.
Let us first take those punctuation marks which have reference to the sentence as such (that is, as a unit), and serve to point to the
End of the Sentence 337
end of a sentence and to its Communication type. These two functions, though essentially different, are performed by punctuation marks simultaneously.
The punctuation marks performing these functions are, the full stop (.), the question mark (?), and the exclamation mark (!).
The full stop may, in general, be said to be a signal of the end of a sentence, though its use as a sign of abbreviation (in such expressions as а. т., р. т., В. С., A. D., etc.) shows that its sentence-ending function is not necessarily the only one. However, with this reservation the function of the full stop as a signal of sentence end may be said to be almost certain. 1
The other function of the full stop refers to the communication character of the sentence. Namely, a full stop shows that the sentence is not interrogative and not exclamatory. That is the only conclusion in this way that can be drawn from it. The question whether the sentence is declarative or imperative cannot be settled by the presence of a full stop at the end. Imperative sentences with a full stop at the end are quite possible, though not exactly frequent. Here are a few examples: Oh, just look at the collar, and those sleeves and those pockets. (DREISER) Don't go acting like this. (Idem) The utmost that can be said in this respect is that it is much more likely for a sentence ending with a full stop to be a declarative than an imperative sentence.
The other two punctuation marks which can signal the end of a sentence are the question mark and the exclamation mark. This function of theirs may be said to be almost certain. We are, however, bound to say "almost", because we must take into account some special cases, mainly in direct speech, where there may be a question mark or an exclamation mark, though the sentence including direct speech may run on after that, as in the following examples: "Renegade!" said Mr Blythe. (GALSWORTHY) "Why can one always tell an Englishman?" said John. (Idem) Of course there are two things to be distinguished here. The sentence "Renegade!" as pronounced by Mr Blythe is certainly finished where the exclamation mark stands, and so is the sentence "Why can one always tell an Englishman?" as pronounced by John, at the point where the interrogation mark stands. But the sentences "Renegade!" said Mr Blythe and "Why can one always tell an Englishman?" said
1 It should be noted, too, that in recent times the use of the full stop in abbreviations tends to be restricted. For instance, nowadays no full stop is used if the last letter of an abbreviation is the last letter of the word, as in Mr, Mrs. There is also a tendency to drop the full stop in such abbreviations as n (for noun), v (for verb) in dictionaries, etc. This makes the function of the full stop to mark the sentence end more certain.
838 Punctuation
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