Table Of ContentLiP
Language in Performance
Sebastian Patt
Punctuation as a Means
of Medium-Dependent
Presentation Structure in English
Exploring the Guide Functions of Punctuation
Punctuation as a Means of Medium-Dependent
Presentation Structure in English
47
Edited by Werner Hüllen (†) and Rainer Schulze
Advisory Board:
Thomas Herbst (Erlangen), Andreas Jucker (Zürich),
Manfred Krug (Bamberg), Christian Mair (Freiburg i.Br.),
Ute Römer (Atlanta, GA, USA), Andrea Sand (Trier),
Hans-Jörg Schmid (München), Josef Schmied (Chemnitz)
and Edgar W. Schneider (Regensburg)
Sebastian Patt
Punctuation as a Means
of Medium-Dependent
Presentation Structure in English
Exploring the Guide Functions of Punctuation
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Contents
Figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX
Typographical conventions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XV
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XIII
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Linguistic description, presentation structure and the status of
punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1 Issues of linguistic description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1.1 Medium-transferability and the linguistic sign . . . . . . . . 13
2.1.2 Decoding linguistic utterances: a ‘three-channel
approach’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.3 Linguistic description: distinctive units of analysis. . . . . 26
2.1.3.1 Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.1.3.2 The medium-independent expression system. . . 28
2.1.3.3 The medium-dependent expression systems
of speech and writing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.2 Presentation structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.2.1 Medium-independent choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2.1.1 Choices which do not influence directly the
structure of clause complexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2.1.2 Choices which influence directly the structure of
clause complexes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.2.2 Medium-dependent choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.2.2.1 Medium-dependent spoken choices. . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.2.2.2 Medium-dependent written choices. . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.3 Verbal and nonverbal information: punctuation from a semiotic
perspective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.3.1 Verbal and nonverbal information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.3.2 Punctuation marks as indices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
2.3.2.1 Determining the communicative value of
punctuation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
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VI Contents
2.3.2.2 Punctuation in a model of verbal and nonverbal
information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3 A short diachronic view on punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.1 Forerunners of punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.2 Punctuation in Old and Middle English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.3 Punctuation and the orthographic sentence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4 The structure of written text: the script unit model. . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.1 The relationship of orthographic sentence and clause complex. 81
4.2 The level of parasyntax. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.3 The script unit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5 Elements of punctuation in present-day English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.1 Defining punctuation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.2 Non-alphanumeric characters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.2.1 As part of orthographic word-forms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.2.2 Creating punctuation units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.2.2.1 Terminal period (or full stop) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.2.2.2 Question mark and exclamation mark. . . . . . . . . 102
5.2.2.3 Semicolon and colon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.2.2.4 Comma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.2.2.5 Dash and parentheses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.2.2.6 Quotation marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
5.2.3 The dual function of punctuation marks: separation and
specification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6 Collecting data to account for the communicative value of
punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
7 Exploring the guide functions of punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
7.1 General punctuation principles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
7.1.1 Punctuation as a style marker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
7.1.1.1 Indicating dimensions of linguistic variation . . . 126
7.1.1.2 Divided usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
7.1.2 Obligatory sentence-internal punctuation. . . . . . . . . . . . 132
7.1.2.1 Cases of structural opacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
7.1.2.2 Cases of intervening syntactic material. . . . . . . . 136
7.1.3 Punctuation and structural integrity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
7.2 Punctuation in context. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
7.2.1 Punctuation at word-level. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
7.2.1.1 Disambiguation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
7.2.1.2 Intensity of effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
7.2.2 Punctuation units and syntax. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
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Contents VII
7.2.2.1 Coordinated constituents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
7.2.2.1.1 Syndetic coordination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
7.2.2.1.2 Asyndetic coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
7.2.2.2 Restrictive and non-restrictive modifiers . . . . . . 160
7.2.2.2.1 Relative clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
7.2.2.2.2 Apposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
7.2.2.3 Adverbials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
7.2.2.3.1 Adjunct. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
7.2.2.3.2 Disjunct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
7.2.2.3.3 Conjunct. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
7.2.2.4 Disambiguation of medium-independent
structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
7.2.2.4.1 The linguistic function of punctuation 204
7.2.2.4.2 Parsing strategies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
7.2.2.4.3 Punctuation as a guide to ambiguous
medium-independent structures: some
examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
7.2.3 Punctuation units and text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
7.2.3.1 Punctuational variability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
7.2.3.1.1 Light and heavy punctuation. . . . . . . . 224
7.2.3.1.2 Punctuation as an indicator of sub-
and superordinate boundaries . . . . . . . 229
7.2.3.1.3 Deviant punctuation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
7.2.3.2 The specifying function of punctuation . . . . . . . 242
7.2.3.2.1 Punctuation as a marker of separative
force. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
7.2.3.2.2 Punctuation and discourse structure. . 245
8 The guide functions of punctuation: theoretical and functional
synopsis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
8.1 Synopsis I: theoretical insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
8.2 Synopsis II: functional insights. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
8.2.1 Punctuation as a paralinguistic device: guide
functions 1 to 8 (GF 1–8) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
8.2.1.1 Reducing cognitive complexity (GF 1–4) . . . . . . 254
8.2.1.1.1 Guide function 1 (GF 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
8.2.1.1.2 Guide function 2 (GF 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
8.2.1.1.3 Guide function 3 (GF 3) . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
8.2.1.1.4 Guide function 4 (GF 4) . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
8.2.1.2 C ontributing to the conceptualisation
of a piece of writing (GF 5–8). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
8.2.1.2.1 Guide function 5 (GF 5) . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
8.2.1.2.2 Guide function 6 (GF 6) . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
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VIII Contents
8.2.1.2.3 Guide function 7 (GF 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
8.2.1.2.4 Guide function 8 (GF 8) . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
8.2.2 Punctuation as a linguistic device: guide function 9
(GF 9) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
9 Conclusion: punctuation and the reader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
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Figures
Figure 2.1 Transferring a linguistic utterance from one medium to
the other. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Figure 2.2 A traditional representation of the linguistic sign as
proposed by de Saussure (1978 [1915]: 99). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Figure 2.3 Image acoustique and image écrite as equivalent
representations of substance in a modified version of the
linguistic sign. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Figure 2.4 A comprehensive extension of the linguistic sign . . . . . . . . 20
Figure 2.5 Description of homophonous and homographic lexemes. . 23
Figure 2.6 Medium-dependent and medium-independent units . . . . . 27
Figure 2.7 Tonal variations and concomitant distinctions in meaning
of the sequence >is he sure of it< . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Figure 2.8 Medium-independent and medium-presentational choices 57
Figure 2.9 Verbal and nonverbal signs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Figure 2.10 The communicative value of punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Figure 4.1 Script units. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Figure 4.2 Syntactic status at punctuation unit boundaries . . . . . . . . . 88
Figure 5.1 Written presentational choices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Figure 5.2 Punctuation hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Figure 5.3 Symbols used in Figure 5.4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Figure 5.4 Possible decision process when creating punctuation units 114
Figure 6.1 The potential nature of punctuation examples. . . . . . . . . . . 117
Figure 6.2 Cyclic process of a multi-method approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Figure 7.1 Summary of general punctuation principles . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Figure 7.2 The influence of constituent length on punctuation usage
in syndetic non-elliptical coordinate constructions (based
on Meyer 1987) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Figure 7.3 The influence of the coordinators and and but on
punctuation usage in syndetic non-elliptical coordinate
constructions (based on Meyer 1987) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Figure 7.4 Summary of script unit types distinguished in section 4.3. 174
Figure 7.5 The punctuation of adjunct phrases and adjunct clauses in
sentence-initial position (based on Meyer 1987) . . . . . . . . . 180
Figure 7.6 Punctuation of finally located adverbial clauses with
regard to adverbial type (based on Ford 1992). . . . . . . . . . . 189
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