A brief history of the appearance of punctuation marks. The history of punctuation marks

Goltsova Nina Grigorievna, professor

Today it is difficult for us to imagine that books were once printed without the well-known icons called punctuation marks.
They have become so familiar to us that we simply do not notice them, and therefore cannot appreciate them. Meanwhile punctuation marks live their own life in the language and have their own interesting story.

In everyday life, we are surrounded by many objects, things, phenomena that are so familiar that we rarely think about the questions: when and how did these phenomena appear and, accordingly, the words that call them? Who is their creator and creator?
Have the words so familiar to us always meant what they mean today? What is the history of their entry into our life and language?

Russian writing, or rather, the graphic system of the Russian language, can be attributed to such familiar and even to some extent ordinary (due to the fact that we encounter this every day).

basis graphics system Russian, like many other languages, are letters and punctuation marks.

When asked when the Slavic alphabet, which is the basis of the Russian alphabet, arose, and who was its creator, many of you will confidently answer: the Slavic alphabet was created by the brothers Cyril and Methodius (863); the basis of the Russian alphabet was the Cyrillic alphabet; Every year in May we celebrate the Day of Slavic Literature.
And when they appeared punctuation marks? Are all known and so well known to us punctuation marks(period, comma, ellipsis, etc.) appeared at the same time? How did the punctuation system of the Russian language develop? What is the history of Russian punctuation?

Let's try to answer some of these questions.

As you know, in the system of modern Russian punctuation 10 punctuation marks: dot [.], comma [,], semicolon [;], ellipsis […], colon [:], question mark [?], exclamation mark [!], dash [–], brackets [()] and quotes [" "].

The oldest sign is dot. It is already found in the monuments of ancient Russian writing. However, its use in that period differed from the modern one: firstly, it was not regulated; secondly, the dot was placed not at the bottom of the line, but above - in the middle of it; moreover, in that period, even individual words were not separated from each other. For example: at the time the holiday is approaching ... (Arkhangelsk Gospel, XI century). What is the explanation for the word dot gives V. I. Dahl:

“POINT (poke) f., badge from an injection, from sticking to something with a point, tip of a pen, pencil; small speck."

The dot can rightly be considered the ancestor of Russian punctuation. It is no coincidence that this word (or its root) entered the name of such signs as semicolon, colon, ellipsis. And in the Russian language of the 16th-18th centuries, the question mark was called question mark, exclamatory - surprise point. In the grammatical writings of the 16th century, the doctrine of punctuation marks was called “the doctrine of the power of points” or “about the point mind”, and in the grammar of Lawrence Zizanias (1596) the corresponding section was called “On points”.

The most common punctuation mark in Russian is considered comma. This word is found in the 15th century. According to P. Ya. Chernykh, the word comma- this is the result of substantiation (transition into a noun) of the passive participle of the past tense from the verb commas (sya) – "to hook (sya)", "to hurt", "to stab". V. I. Dal connects this word with the verbs wrist, comma, stammer - “stop”, “delay”. This explanation, in our opinion, seems reasonable.

Need in punctuation marks began to be acutely felt in connection with the emergence and development of printing (XV-XVI centuries). In the middle of the 15th century, the Italian typographers Manutius invented punctuation for European writing, which was accepted in general terms by most European countries and still exists.

In Russian, most of the punctuation marks known to us today appear in the 16th-18th centuries. So, parentheses[()] are found in monuments of the 16th century. Previously, this sign was called "capacious".

Colon[:] as a delimiter begins to be used with late XVI century. It is mentioned in the grammars of Lavrenty Zizaniy, Melety Smotrytsky (1619), as well as in the first Russian grammar of the Dolomonos period by V. E. Adodurov (1731).

Exclamation point[!] is noted to express exclamation (surprise) also in the grammars of M. Smotrytsky and V. E. Adodurov. The rules for setting the “surprising sign” are defined in the “Russian Grammar” by M. V. Lomonosov (1755).

Question mark[?] has been found in printed books since the 16th century, however, to express a question, it was fixed much later, only in the 18th century. Initially, in the meaning of [?] there was [;] .

The later characters are dash[-] and ellipsis[…]. There is an opinion that the dash was invented by N.M. Karamzin. However, it has been proven that this sign was found in the Russian press already in the 60s of the 18th century, and N. M. Karamzin only contributed to the popularization and consolidation of the functions of this sign. For the first time, the dash sign [–] under the name “silent woman” was described in 1797 in A. A. Barsov’s Russian Grammar.

Ellipsis sign[…] under the name “precedent sign” is noted in 1831 in the grammar of A. Kh. Vostokov, although its use occurs in the practice of writing much earlier.

No less interesting is the history of the appearance of the sign, which later received the name quotes[" "]. The word quotation marks in the meaning of a musical (hook) sign occurs in the 16th century, but in the meaning punctuation mark it was only used in late XVIII century. It is assumed that the initiative to introduce this punctuation mark into the practice of Russian written speech (as well as dash) belongs to N. M. Karamzin. Scientists believe that the origin of this word is not fully understood. Comparison with the Ukrainian name paws makes it possible to assume that it is formed from the verb kavykat - "waddle", "limp". In Russian dialects kavysh - "duckling", "gosling"; kavka - "frog". In this way, quotes – „traces of duck or frog legs”, “hook”, “squiggle”.

As you can see, the names of most punctuation marks in Russian are native Russian, and the term punctuation marks itself goes back to the verb punctuate - "stop, delay in motion." The names of only two signs were borrowed. Hyphen(dash) - from it. Divis(from lat. division- separately) and dash (trait) - from French tiret, tirer.

The beginning of the scientific study of punctuation was laid by M. V. Lomonosov in the Russian Grammar. Today we use the "Rules of Spelling and Punctuation", adopted in 1956, that is, almost half a century ago.

Source: Website of the Open International Russian Language Olympiad

Punctuation Marks (1913)

J. A. Baudouin de Courtenay
Selected works on general linguistics: In 2 vols. - M .: Publishing House of Acad. Sciences of the USSR, 1963.
Punctuation marks (pp. 238–239). Published entirely according to the manuscript (Archive of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, f. 770, op. 3, item 7).

Punctuation marks, elements of writing or written-visual language, associated not with individual elements of the pronunciation-auditory language and their combinations, but only with the division of the current speech into separate parts: periods, sentences, individual expressions, words. There are two main categories of punctuation marks.
1) Some of them apply only to morphology of written speech, i.e. to breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces. These are: dot(.) separating periods or separate offers one from the other; moreover, it serves as a sign cuts words (b. h. instead of “for the most part”, because instead of “because”, etc.); colon(:), used mainly before the calculation of the individual parts of what was said before the colon or when a quote is given, i.e. verbatim text previously expressed by another person or by the author himself (see "Colon"); semicolon(;) separates combinations of incomplete [? - nrzb.] sentences or countable parts of a dismembered whole; comma(,) serves to separate from each other sentences that are no longer separable or isolated, interstitial expressions, such as the vocative case, word combinations, or even individual words that give a certain shade to this sentence, etc. (for example, thus, however etc.).
This also includes: dividing the book into departments, on the chapters, on the paragraphs(§§), articles...; paragraphs(from the red line); distinguishing features; short lines, dash(tiret), connecting two parts of a compound word; spaces, both larger, between lines, and the smallest, between individual written words; parentheses(), containing words, expressions and phrases, introductory, explanatory, etc.; callouts(*, **, 1, 2...), at the bottom of the pages or at the end of the book, with links or explanations of individual words of the main text.

2) Another category of punctuation marks, also related to the morphology or segmentation of written speech, emphasizes mainly semasiological side, indicating the mood of the speaker or writer and his attitude to the content of what is found in writing. By using quotation marks("") differs someone else's or supposed with the reservation "as if", "so to speak", "say", "they say" from one's own without reservations.
This also includes: question mark(cm.), Exclamation point(cm.). A special sign of irony was also supposed, but so far unsuccessfully. These last signs are associated with a different tone of speech, i.e., they are reflected in the general mental shade of what is pronounced. Of course, morphological punctuation marks (periods, spaces ...) are reflected to a certain extent in pronunciation, especially at a slow pace: pauses, stops, respite.
Special punctuation marks: ellipsis(...) when something is not finished or implied; a dash (-) that replaces the ellipsis, which, especially in fiction, replaces either a comma or brackets, or quotation marks; apostrophe(cm.). Quotes and brackets are placed on both sides of the given - both before and after; exclamation mark and question mark are placed only at the end. The Spaniards, however, mark not only the end, but also the beginning of an exclamation (I!) or a question (??). The system of punctuation marks adopted in Europe goes back to the Greek Alexandrian grammars; it was finally established from the end of the 15th century, especially by the Venetian family of printers Manutius. At different peoples there are different ways use punctuation marks, especially the comma. In ancient Indian writing (Sanskrit) there are no our punctuation marks at all; there the words are written together, and the signs / and // separate either individual verses or individual phrases. Previously, in European writing systems, among other things in Church Slavonic, words were written together and without punctuation marks.

Interpunction

Interpunction (lat.) - the theory of use punctuation marks in writing and their very placement. Subject to well-known certain rules, interpunction makes the syntactic structure of speech clear, highlighting individual sentences and members of sentences, as a result of which the oral reproduction of what is written is facilitated. The term interpuncture is of Roman origin, but the origin of interpuncture itself is unclear.

Whether interpuncture was known to Aristotle is not clear. In any case, the beginnings of it were among the Greek grammarians. The very concept of interpuncture, however, differed from that of modern Greek and Roman grammarians. The interpuncture of the ancients had in mind mainly oratorical requirements (delivering a speech, reciting it) and consisted in putting simple dots at the end of sentences or in the use of paragraphs called lines or verses (versus).

The new interpuncture does not originate from this ancient one, but from interpuncture. Alexandrian era, invented by the grammarian Aristophanes and developed by later ones. By the end of the 8th century according to R. Chr. it had, however, fallen into oblivion to such an extent that Varnefrid and Alcuin, contemporaries of Charlemagne, had to re-introduce it. At first, the Greeks used only one sign - a dot, which was placed at the top of the line, then in the middle of it, then at the bottom. Other Greek grammarians, like Nicanor (who lived a little later than Quintilian), used other systems of interpuncture (Nikanor had eight signs, others four, etc.), but they all mixed the syntactic side of speech with the logical side and did not work out any definite rules. (See Steinthal, "Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft bei d. Griechen und Romern", vol. II, Berl. 1891, pp. 348-354).

The same uncertainty prevailed in the Middle Ages, until about the 15th century, when the typographer brothers Manutius increased the number punctuation marks and subjected their use to certain rules. In fact, they must be considered the fathers of modern European interpuncture, in which no significant changes have been made since that time. However, the interpunctuation of various modern European peoples differ in some respects from each other. So, in English, a comma or dash is often placed before and ( and) and is not used at all before relative clauses (as in French). The most complex and most accurate interpuncture is German. Its theory is described in great detail by Becker ("Ausfuhrliche deutsche Grammatik", 2nd ed., Frankfurt, 1842), and the history and characteristics are in Bieling "a: "Das Prinzip der deutschen Interpunction" (Berlin, 1886).

The Russian interpuncture is a very close cleavage to the German one and presents the same virtues. An exposition of it can be found in Y. Grot: "Russian Spelling". Old Church Slavonic interpunction followed Greek patterns. In Russian interpunction, the following are used punctuation marks: comma, semicolon, colon, full stop, ellipsis, question mark, exclamation point, dash, brackets, quotation marks.

Punctuation marks have been around for a long time. But their number and rules of use gradually changed. There was a time when those who wrote in Russian got by with just one sign - a dot located in the middle of a line between groups of undivided words. It is punctuation that is an important means of formalizing written speech: punctuation marks indicate its semantic division. At the same time, to a large extent, Russian punctuation is built on a syntactic basis, as the wording of most punctuation rules shows. All this gives the Russian punctuation system great flexibility: along with mandatory rules, it contains instructions that do not have a strict normative nature and allow punctuation options related not only to the semantic side of the written text, but also to its stylistic features. J.K. Grot believed that through the main punctuation marks, “an indication of a large and a smaller connection between sentences, and partly between members of sentences” is given, which serves “to make it easier for the reader to understand written speech.”

After analyzing the edition of Shapiro "Punctuation", we can conclude that punctuation marks are signs that form a special part of the general graphic system of a given language and serve those aspects of written speech that cannot be expressed in letters and other written symbols (numbers, equal sign, sign similarities).

This definition of the role of punctuation marks is a modern generalization. But how did Russian science come to him?

Ancient scribes did not use punctuation marks, and for a long time all words were written together. Punctuation originates in the IV-V centuries. when they start using a space; texts are formatted so that each major period starts with a red line and with a capital letter. Most of the Latin monuments are punctuated later.

To indicate the end of a sentence or phrase, a combination of dots and dashes was used: “syllable”, “article”, “rhyme”.

In the most ancient written monuments, other signs were common:

Period in the middle of a string (corresponds to a comma)

Quadruple (a conceivable cross, corresponds to a dot)

crosses different type(set to divide the sacred text into verses).

Interestingly, in part of the text of the Ostromirov Gospel (1056 - 1057), a cross and a wavy vertical line - "serpent" are also used, the functions of which are not clearly defined. "Cross" and "serpent" are written in red, the point - in black, like the text itself. According to the drawing, these signs resemble “kryzh” and “serpent” in ancient notes, and on the first sheets two more signs are added to the cross, also clearly originating from notes: on top - a sign called “horn” in ancient notation, below - “bench” .

In ancient Russian writing, the text was not divided into words and sentences. Punctuation marks (period, cross, wavy line) divided the text mainly into semantic segments or marked a stop in the work of the scribe.

Of great importance for the development of punctuation was the introduction of printing. The setting of signs in printed works was primarily the work of typographic masters, who often did not take into account what the author's handwritten text was in terms of punctuation.

Formed in basic terms to XVIII century the system of punctuation marks required the development of certain rules about their use. Back in the 16th - 17th centuries, the first attempts were observed to theoretically comprehend the setting of the punctuation marks that existed by that time. However, the general and particular foundations for punctuation marks in their main features took shape during the 18th century, when the formation of the foundations of the modern Russian literary language ended.

The principles on which the entire system of punctuation rules is based were gradually comprehended.

Most of the ancient writings knew only a “paragraph” or “period” of all punctuation marks. Graphically, they were expressed in different ways, although, apparently, the dot was the most common form. In ancient Russian writing, the most common sign was a dot, used more or less in the sense of our comma and basically dividing, apparently, the text into syntagmas. These or other signs are more complex shape, which would more or less correspond in meaning to our point, are less common and are something in between our "paragraph" and "point".

As far as can be judged from the testimony of monuments, including printed ones, as well as from grammar and spelling manuals XVIII century(mainly for learning foreign languages), the main reason for putting punctuation marks was the presence of pauses in speech of greater or lesser duration. For setting a question mark, the interrogative meaning of the sentence served as the basis, for setting a colon - the transition from the explained part of the sentence to the explanatory one. But these two punctuation marks were not placed in all cases. So, there were significantly fewer punctuation marks in the middle of the 18th century than in our time. By the end of the 18th century, new punctuation marks appeared: dashes, quotation marks, ellipsis. They were usually introduced into the practice of writing by writers and, accordingly, were reflected in textbooks and teaching aids on grammar and spelling. It is known that the sign of the dash (or "line") was the first to use Karamzin. It is still not possible to specify exactly who owns the initiative to use ellipsis and quotation marks in Russian writing.

The beginning of the scientific development of Russian punctuation was laid by the brilliant representative of grammatical science of the 18th century, M.V. Lomonosov, in his work Russian Grammar, written in 1755. M. V. Lomonosov gives an exact list of punctuation marks used by that time in Russian printed literature, sets out the rules for their use in a system, formulating these rules on a semantic and grammatical basis.

The greatest merit in streamlining Russian punctuation in the 19th century belongs to Academician Ya.K. . Grotto sets out in detail the history and principles of Russian writing, difficult cases of spelling, gives a scientifically systematized and theoretically meaningful set of spelling and punctuation rules. The rules for the use of punctuation marks formulated by him are valuable in that they sum up the searches in the field of punctuation of previous authors. Grot's ordered punctuation, as well as spelling, rules have entered the practice of the school and publishing houses and, at their core, with minor changes, are still in effect today.

Some linguists are of the view that Russian punctuation is based on a semantic basis, others on a grammatical basis, and still others on an intonation basis. However, despite the theoretical disagreements of scientists, the fundamental foundations of Russian punctuation remain unchanged, which contributes to its stability, although individual punctuation rules are periodically refined and specified in connection with the development of Russian grammatical theory and the Russian literary language as a whole.

1. 2. Principles of modern punctuation.

Classification of punctuation marks and their characteristics.

Modern Russian punctuation is built on semantic and structural-grammatical foundations, which are interconnected and condition each other. Punctuation reflects the semantic division of written speech, indicates semantic connections and relationships between individual words and groups of words, and various semantic shades of parts of a written text.

Punctuation marks are divided into:

▪ highlighting signs, which serve to mark the boundaries of a syntactic construction that is introduced into a sentence to supplement, explain its members or the entire sentence, explain its members or the entire sentence as a whole, intonation-semantic allocation of k. - l. part of a sentence, as well as to indicate the boundary of a construction containing the name of the person or object to which the speech is addressed, or expressing the subjective attitude of the writer to his statement, or shaping someone else's statement: two commas - as a single pair sign, two dashes - as a single pair sign , quotes, brackets;

▪ separating signs that serve to distinguish between independent sentences, their parts (main and subordinate clauses, subject groups and predicate groups), homogeneous syntactic elements ( homogeneous members sentences, subordinate clauses), as well as to indicate the type of sentence for the purpose of the statement, the emotional nature of the sentence, the break in speech: dot, question mark, exclamation point, comma, semicolon, colon, dash, ellipsis.

Consider the modern concept of punctuation marks:

1) A period (.) is a punctuation mark placed at the end of a sentence. The period is one of the most ancient punctuation marks. It was used to separate words or larger sections of text from each other. In the same function, a cross or a vertical, wavy line was used. The point was originally placed at different levels: either at the base of the letter, or at the level of its middle. Sometimes a scribe, interrupting work, could put a full stop even in the middle of a word. In modern Russian written speech, a dot is placed at the end of a declarative or motivating sentence: “It was evening. The sky was dark. The waters flowed quietly" (Pushkin "Eugene Onegin"). The dot is used in abbreviated spelling of words (for example: etc., etc.); and in abbreviations, the dot is not put.

2) Question mark - a punctuation mark used to express a question. Initially, a semicolon was used in the meaning of the question mark (this is reflected in the grammars of L. Zizania, (1596), and M. Smotrytsky, (1619), although the question mark was already found in the books of the first half of the 16th century. Finally, the question mark was fixed to express the question of "Russian grammar" M. V. Lomonosov.In modern Russian written speech, an exclamation point is put:

▪ at the end of an interrogative sentence, including after incomplete interrogative sentences following one after another: “Who are you? Live? Dead? (A. Blok, "Poems about a beautiful lady");

▪ in interrogative sentences with homogeneous members after each homogeneous member in order to dismember the question: “Yes, what am I to whom? before them? to the whole universe? (Griboyedov "Woe from Wit");

3) An exclamation mark (!) is a punctuation mark used to express an exclamation. This sign called “surprising” is mentioned in the grammar of M. Smotritsky (1619). In modern Russian written speech, an exclamation point is put:

▪ at the end of an exclamatory sentence: “Long live the revolution, joyful and fast!” (Mayakovsky, poem "V. I. Lenin");

▪ in exclamatory sentences with homogeneous members after each homogeneous member to indicate the emotional discontinuity of speech: “I rejected everything: laws! conscience! faith!" (Griboyedov "Woe from Wit");

▪ after words pronounced with exclamatory intonation - sentences, appeals, interjections, standing at the beginning (in poetic speech - and in the middle) of a sentence or used independently: “Old man! I heard many times that you saved me from death ”(Lermontov“ Mtsyri ”);

▪ in brackets inside or after a quote to express the author's attitude (irony, indignation, etc.) to the quoted text.

4) Comma (,) - a punctuation mark that serves to separate or highlight words, groups of words and simple sentences as part of a complex one. The appearance of a comma in the monuments of Russian writing dates back to the 15th century. In modern Russian written speech, a comma is the most common punctuation mark, acting in a separating function (one comma) or in an excretory function (paired punctuation mark - two commas). The comma is used:

▪ between homogeneous members of the sentence (connected without unions, repeating or paired unions, non-repeating unions with an opposing or concessive meaning) and between repeated words: “I will put not the clan, but the mind in governors.” (Pushkin "Boris Godunov"); “Winter was waiting, nature was waiting” (Pushkin “Eugene Onegin”);

▪ between simple sentences that are part of a complex non-union or compound sentence: “The sun went behind the mountains, but it was still light” (Lermontov, poem “Demon”);

▪ between the main and the subordinate clause (or to highlight the subordinate clause on both sides), between subordinate clauses: “Go along the free path, where the free mind leads you” (Pushkin, poem “To the Poet”);

▪ to separate or isolate isolated members of a sentence, with words or groups of words that limit or clarify other words in the sentence: “In the distance, closer to the grove, axes thudded dully” (Turgenev “Notes of a Hunter”);

▪ with comparative turns: “like a storm, death takes the groom” (Pushkin “Boris Godunov”);

▪ to separate or highlight words that are not grammatically related to the members of the sentence (introductory words, appeals, interjections, affirmative, negative and question words): “With his eyes, it seems that he would like to eat everyone.”

(Krylov, fable "Wolf in the kennel").

5) Semicolon (;) - a punctuation mark used in a complex and, less often, in a simple sentence to separate its relatively independent parts. It was first introduced by the Italian printer Aldus Manutius in 1449, who used it to separate opposite words and independent parts of compound sentences. Shakespeare already used (;) in his sonnets. In Church Slavonic, the semicolon played the role of a question mark.

▪ “And Esau said: Behold, I am going to die, and this is my preeminence”

▪ “Esau said, Behold, I am dying, what is this birthright to me?”

In modern Russian writing, a semicolon is placed:

▪ in complex non-union and compound sentences, if their parts are widely distributed and contain commas, for example: “The pale gray sky was brighter, colder, bluer; the stars now twinkled with a faint light, then disappeared; the earth is damp, the leaves are sweating” (Turgenev “Bezhin meadow”); “Almost every evening later they went somewhere out of town, to Oreanda or to a waterfall; and the walk went well, the impressions were invariably beautiful, stately every time ”(Chekhov“ The Lady with the Dog ”);

▪ in a simple sentence between homogeneous members of the sentence, if they are widely distributed and contain commas, for example: “The same obscure objects vaguely appeared in the darkness: in some distance a black wall, the same moving spots; next to me is the croup of a horse, which, waving its tail, widely spread its legs: its back is in a white Circassian coat.

(L. N. Tolstoy, collected works, story "The Raid").

6) Colon (:) - a punctuation mark, in the form of two dots, located one under the other, used in a simple sentence and in a non-union complex sentence. Combinations of several points are noted in the monuments of Russian writing ancient period. These signs were originally used to separate words or larger sections of text from each other. In modern Russian writing, a semicolon is placed:

▪ before listing, if it is preceded by a generalizing word or words, for example, somehow, namely, for example: “A large fish is beating with a sharp edge, such as: pikes, catfish, asps, pike perches” (Aksakov, “Notes of a rifle hunter of the Orenburg province ", stories and memoirs of a hunter about different hunts. "Hunting with a spear");

▪ in complex unionless proposal, if the second part reveals the content of the first part, complements the first or indicates the reason for what is said in the first part, for example: “A rather entertaining picture opened up here: a wide saklya, with which the roof rested on two sooty pillars, was full of people” (Lermontov "Hero of our time");

7) Dash - (French tiret, from tirer - pull) - a punctuation mark in the form of a horizontal line (-), used in simple and complex sentences. Introduced into use by the Russian writer and historian N. M. Karamzin. In modern Russian written speech, the dash is put:

▪ between the subject and the predicate: “Lgov is a large steppe village” (Turgenev “Notes of a Hunter”);

▪ before a generalizing word after homogeneous members: “Hope and a swimmer - the whole sea swallowed up” (Krylov, works in 2 volumes. “An old man and three young people”);

▪ before a separate appendix, usually standing at the end of a sentence: “I had a cast-iron teapot with me - my only joy in traveling around the Caucasus.”

(Lermontov "A Hero of Our Time");

▪ between members of a sentence to express surprise or opposition: “I wanted to travel around the whole world - and did not travel a hundredth” (Griboyedov “Woe from Wit”);

▪ in a complex non-union sentence to indicate a quick change of events, to express a sharp contrast, to express temporary, conditional-investigative and other relationships: “Ignat lowered his gun - misfired” (Chekhov “White-browed”);

▪ between replicas in a dialogue given without a paragraph, or at the beginning of replicas given from a paragraph;

▪ to indicate decay simple sentence into verbal groups, which often happens when a member of a sentence is omitted:

“I ask you: do the workers need to be paid?” (Chekhov "Ivanov");

“Everything is obedient to me, but I am nothing” (Pushkin “Eugene Onegin”);

8) A double dash (a paired punctuation mark acting as a highlighting function) is used to highlight:

▪ introductory and plug-in sentences and constructions: “There is nothing to do here - friends kissed” (Krylov, the fable “Two Doves”);

▪ a common application after the word being defined to emphasize the independent meaning of this application: “In front of the doors of the club - a wide log house - workers with banners were waiting for the guests” (Fedin, novel “An Extraordinary Summer”);

9) Ellipsis - () - a punctuation mark in the form of those adjacent dots, used to indicate the incompleteness or interruption of a statement, as well as omissions in the text. For the first time it was indicated in the grammar of A. Kh. Vostokov (1831) under the name "stop sign". Dots are used:

▪ to indicate incompleteness or a break in the statement caused by the speaker's excitement or an unexpected transition to another thought, as well as to indicate a pause that emphasizes the text following it: "Without receiving an answer, Dunya raised her head and fell on the carpet with a cry."

(Pushkin, prose, "The Stationmaster");

▪ when quoting (before the beginning of a quotation, in the middle or after it) to indicate that a frequently quoted text has been omitted. In order to distinguish a gap in a quote from the author's ellipsis, in some special editions a special technique is used: in the case of a gap, not three, but two dots are placed side by side.

2. 1. General comparison of modern Russian and European punctuation

The punctuation systems of most modern writing systems are the same.

The differences relate only to particulars. Punctuation marks in English, for example, are used less frequently and not in the same way as in Russian. Punctuation in English is a very problematic part of grammar. Unlike Russian, punctuation is not given due attention in English. Many native speakers take such liberties with punctuation in writing that they seem unacceptable.

English punctuation is basically similar to Russian, but its application is very free and not subject to strict, mandatory rules.

The punctuation systems of the Russian and English languages, in addition to their general similarity, have a number of features. The functions of the same punctuation marks, as well as the ways in which similar linguistic phenomena are presented in written speech, often do not coincide. In Russian, punctuation depends mainly on the syntactic structure of a sentence, while in English, syntactic boundaries within a sentence are not necessarily punctuated.

In Russian, the subordinate clause is always separated by a comma from the main clause. In English, this happens much less often, namely:

▪ The subordinate clause is not separated by a comma:

We know that at present all roads lead to Communism.

We know that at present all roads lead to communism.

▪ A relative attributive clause is not separated by a comma if it is not descriptive, but restrictive, i.e. when it distinguishes the word being defined from a number of others:

The historic changes that have occurred in Asia are of cardinal significance.

The historical changes that have taken place in Asia are of paramount importance.

If the attributive clause provides only additional information about the word or sentence being defined and is equivalent to an independent sentence, then it is separated by a comma:

Tsiolkovsky studied many branches of knowledge, which enabled him to become a prominent scientist.

Tsiolkovsky studied many branches of knowledge, which helped him become an outstanding scientist.

The subordinate conditional and adverbial clause is separated by a comma only if it precedes the equal clause (or if it is too long):

If you added less acid, the reaction would not be so violent.

If you had added less acid, the reaction would not have been as violent.

In Russian, quotation marks are placed at the bottom and at the top, in English - only along the top cut of the line:

You don't like this “You don't like the man, man? do you?”

Yes, I don't like it. “No, I don't”

You don't like this “You don't like the man, man? Do you?”

No, I like it. “Yes, I do”

In English, the dash is not used to convey remarks in the dialogue of the interlocutors or between the words of the author and direct speech, as in Russian, in this case quotation marks are enough.

Single dashes perform several functions in English that do not coincide with the functions of a dash in Russian (here it is used to distinguish the subject from the predicate with a zero connective), for example: "Our neighbor is an engineer." There is no such function in English, since there is no link in the declarative sentence in English, then there may not be a dash, for example: “Not a coward!” But in English, a dash is placed where in Russian it does not tend to stand, namely, to indicate an interrupted or for some reason unfinished sentence (in Russian, in such cases, ellipsis is put). Let's analyze the examples: “Marrying Sibil Vane? » cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at Dorian. “But, my dear Dorian – Yesterday when I heard that Sibil Vane had killed herself -. ” Dash in this case denotes an unfinished presentation, the cause of which is the strong excitement of the speaker, weighing his words. Another difference in the use of dashes in English from Russian. In English, it is not customary to put a dash at the beginning of a dialogue to indicate a change in speaking faces. Thus, we can safely say that the functions and rules for using dashes are different in Russian and English.

Both in English and in Russian, to frame words, phrases of an introductory nature, wedged into the text, to isolate a common application, paired commas or paired brackets are put to close:

He, Martin Eden, was a better man than that fellow.

The old gentleman, her father, was always dabbing on speculation.

Sometimes additions are also highlighted on both sides, which in a conversation have the power of an intonation character.

Similarly, in Russian and English, a comma is placed in compound sentences in the presence of the unions “and”, “but”, “so”.

(“and”, “but”, “so”).

The use of a comma in a complex sentence. In Russian, a comma is always put, and in English it is put only when the subordinate clause that is part of complex sentence, starting with the words “that”, “because”, “as”, “if”, “when”, “after”, “since” - (“this”, “because”, “how”, “if”, “when”, “after”, “since then”), etc. But if the main sentence comes first, then the comma is not placed before the listed allied words:

When Paul called to see Pearl, she found her still sick.

The day came to an end when they appeared in the distance.

Consider the differences in the use of a comma in English and Russian sentences. In a sentence with a small text of direct speech, a comma is put in the English sentence, and a colon will be in Russian:

She sank down by his side and cried, “Oh, Phil! It's all so horrid!" But if the text of direct speech is long, then a colon is also put, for example:

Lincoln said: “Many years ago our fathers had brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”

In conclusion, it is worth adding that introductory words in English, as in Russian, are necessarily separated by commas:

Namely, it was her natural shyness. (Namely)

Of course, he apologized. (Of course)

As for the next sign, the colon, in both languages it clarifies, explains, expands or narrows further information.

Sometimes a colon stylistically colors a sentence and indicates its high style and the seriousness of the information. Of course, here there is a slight difference between the use of a comma and a colon, and in English the colon is used more widely, in a slightly different direction, that is, it can be an independent statement, for example:

Oh, don't shout Paul: it really isn't nice.

Mother-in-Law, Sergius: mother-in-law.

The next sign - a semicolon - also approximately coincides in Russian and English, but sometimes a Russian semicolon corresponds to a colon in English. The most important function of a semicolon is to stand at the end of a sentence that expresses an incomplete thought, followed by another simple or complex sentence, completing the sentence, followed by a period. A semicolon can be used several times in a sentence, using the example of one long compound non-union sentence, which includes several simple sentences that are not closely related to each other, so as not to confuse the reader with a long sentence with various complications.

Moreover, it can be noted that errors are made much less frequently on this punctuation mark.

It should also be noted that the function of the period, as a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence, does not differ at all in different languages, which can not be said about the dash.

After analyzing the use of punctuation marks in Russian and English, we can come to the conclusion that it is some difference in their use that is the reason for errors.

Punctuation marks are now largely uniform and perform almost the same function in many European and non-European languages. So, for example, in Russian and most European languages, interrogative and exclamatory sentences are fixed, as a rule, with one question or exclamation mark at the end of the sentence, and in Spanish - with two question and exclamation marks - at the beginning and at the end of the sentence. At the same time, an overturned question and exclamation mark are put first:

- "¿Quién fue el autor de la Ilíada?"

-“¡Que me me acuerde de tí!”

- "¿Qué hace ahí?"

In Spanish, all the same characters are used as in Russian, but there are also their own, special ones. What are they called and what role do they play? coma - comma, punto final - dot, punto y coma - semicolon, dos puntos - colon, puntos suspensivos () - ellipsis, principio de interrogación (¿) - initial question mark, fin de interrogación (?) - final question mark , principio de admiración (¡) - initial exclamation mark, fin de admiración (!) - final exclamation mark, paréntesis () - brackets, diéresis o crema (¨) - trema, colon over letter, comillas (""; "") - quotes, guión (-) - hyphen, raya (-) - dash, dos rayas (=) - double dash.

Commas, dots and brackets indicate pauses of different lengths, which, when read, make it possible to understand the meaning of sentences. These signs are used in Spanish in almost the same way as in Russian, with the only difference being that complex sentences with many participles and participles in Spanish are not as frequent as in Russian, and they are not distinguished in writing.

A period is the end of a sentence or an abbreviation. Comma - enumeration, conversion, clarification, introductory words and words - bundles (esto es, es decir, o sea, en fin, por último, por consiguiente, sin embargo, no obstante, además, en tal caso, por lo tanto, en cambio, en primer lugar, generalmente, posiblemente, efectivamente, finalmente, en definitiva, por regla general, quizás). In addition, the comma is used in dates, bibliographic data and addresses (Madrid, 25 de enero de 2007. BELLO, Andrés: Gramática de la lengua castellana destinada al uso de los americanos.)

The semicolon is used to indicate a pause longer than from a comma but shorter than from a colon, and is most often used before a subordinate adversative clause.

The colon is used before the enumeration after the generic word.

Quotation marks indicate quotations, or give figurative meaning to certain words. The hyphen is used to wrap words and to connect parts of compound words.

The dash is used in direct speech, and in all other cases in the same way as in Russian (for lists, for clarifications, pauses, etc.). As for the double dash, this is a rarely used obsolete character used in copies of documents to indicate paragraphs that are given separately in the original.

Conclusion

Russian punctuation can be considered both in a narrow and in a broad sense. In a narrow sense, it includes basic punctuation marks. These are sentence-ending characters (period, exclamation mark, question mark, ellipsis), sentence “middle” characters (comma, semicolon, dash, colon), paired characters (double comma, double dash, brackets, quotation marks). Thus, the main corpus of punctuation marks in Russian includes twelve characters that students should know well. In a broad sense, punctuation marks include signs of the spatial organization of the text: space, paragraph indents, asterisks, etc.

Without the ability to punctuate, it is impossible to master written speech in general, which is why it is so important to know punctuation - a branch of the science of language that talks about their use. And without the development of written language, thanks to which human knowledge and experience are passed on from generation to generation, it is impossible to even imagine life today.

Punctuation marks arose from the need to divide the written text into segments of greater or lesser independence in accordance with the semantic structure of speech. Thus, the first punctuation marks denoted pauses of greater or lesser duration within the written text. It goes without saying that writers could only be satisfied with such primitive punctuation during the initial stages of writing. Indeed, with the development of writing, especially after the introduction and spread of printing, the punctuation system became more complicated and deepened, until relatively short period did not reach the state that is preserved in its main features in modern European languages.

The principles of punctuation are interrelated and in the same punctuation fact we can find a combination different principles, although the leading one is syntactic (structural). Modern Russian punctuation relies on the meaning, structure, and rhythmic-intonational division of the sentence in their interaction. Therefore, Russian punctuation is quite flexible and, along with mandatory rules, contains indications that allow punctuation options.

Comparison of the punctuation design of texts that are chronologically distant from each other helped to understand the essence of modern Russian punctuation. Punctuation is a living, mobile, developing, historically established system.

After analyzing the history of the use of punctuation marks in the Russian language, considering the norms for the use of punctuation marks in European languages, we can conclude that Russian punctuation is very similar to the punctuation of European languages (Spanish, English).

Summing up the centuries-old history of writing and printing, it can be seen that it has steadily developed towards an increase in both the number and variety of functions of the signs used - this was facilitated by the improvement of the methods of presenting information, and the complication of human activity and the emergence of its new forms led to the emergence of new categories of written signs that appeared as a response to the need for new types of information:

The invention of printing, the spread of literacy and paper correspondence, the transition of the book from the field of highly specialized, mainly religious texts, to the field of sources of diverse worldly content required the introduction of punctuation marks that help convey intonational and semantic features, dialogues, etc.

The complication of legal practice and the need to compose structured texts led to the development of chapters, paragraphs, paragraphs, footnotes, explanations and the invention of signs to highlight them.

The emergence of computer correspondence and conversational communication without direct contact caused a need for written transmission of emotions, gestures and facial expressions, which contributed to the emergence of emoticons.

To learn how to handle punctuation marks, you need to understand what is the basis for their use. Do you think intonation? Oh no! This is a dangerous shaky approach. Here everyone would have done this in their own way! Remember to write words by ear

So what lies at the basis of Russian punctuation, what signs of a sentence should be used in order to correctly punctuate?

Russian punctuation has a twofold basis. This was pointed out by the great Lomonosov in his "Russian Grammar": Lowercase signs are placed according to the strength of the mind and its location, and unions.

Remember: To put this or that punctuation mark, you must first determine the semantic side of the sentence and then its structure, that is, act according to the formula:

MEANING + STRUCTURE = punctuation marks

Here is an example of how the sign affects the meaning of sentences: There were a lot of people that day. We pushed in the woods, along the shore, settled all the benches: some in tracksuits, some in pajamas, with children, with dogs, guitars. (Yu. Trifonov). Firstly, thanks to the comma, the forest was not on the shore; and Secondly, the comma avoided "pajamas with kids and dogs".

Who needed to invent punctuation marks. Periods still come in handy, but those confusing comma and dash rules that are an integral part of literate writing seem to have been invented to mock schoolchildren. At the dawn of the history of the development of writing, writers and readers did without them for thousands of years, but then something changed. Did they just get bored?

Librarian from Alexandria

In the third century BC, in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, which at that time was part of Greece, the librarian Aristophanes worked. He was in charge of the city's most famous library, where hundreds of thousands of scrolls were collected. Their reading took a lot of time, approximately each text looked like this. There was no separation between words, lowercase and uppercase letters, and, most importantly, punctuation in the sentence was completely absent. A doppelgänger's dream!

To understand such a text, the reader needed a lot of time, first it was necessary to isolate the words, then to understand where one thought ends and the next begins. Strictly speaking, in those distant times, oratory and persuasive colloquial speech were more important than writing. At the dawn of Greek and Roman democracy, all issues were discussed publicly, and in order to promote their ideas, a politician had to be eloquent and persuasive.

At that time, no one was reading newspapers and brochures about the upcoming elections, and people did not need to be literate in order to understand who is who. The lyrics were never read in public. When one day a writer named Aulus Gellius was asked to read an unfamiliar document aloud, he refused, declaring that he would not mutilate his speech. It was simply impossible to understand the text at the first reading. And poor Aristophanes had to deal with all these illegible scrolls. No wonder the librarian decided to make his life easier.

The appearance of the first punctuation marks in the history of punctuation

Aristophanes suggested separating the continuous flow of text by upper middle ( ), lower (.) and upper (˙) dots. He called them "subordinate", "intermediate", and complete. The dots corresponded to the length of the pauses in colloquial speech, which has now been replaced by a comma, a colon, and a full stop. Of course, this was not yet punctuation, in the form that we know now. Aristophanes emphasized merely pauses in pronunciation, not grammatical boundaries, but the seed was sown.

Aristophanes' system did not last very long. Soon Greece was conquered by Rome, and the fearless conquerors abandoned the distinction of thought. The famous orator Cicero stated that the end of a sentence should not be determined by the pauses of the breath speaker or the whim of the scribe, but by the coherence of the rhythm. The cult of oratory was so developed that the dots separating words seemed superfluous to the Romans.

Crusade

Oddly enough, the emergence of Christianity influenced the history of punctuation. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the pagans of the once great country began a hopeless struggle against the new religion. Traditionally, in pagan religions, traditions and legends were passed from mouth to mouth. Christians preferred to use writing to memorize and spread their psalms and gospels. It was one of the first media wins.

Books have become an integral part of Christian identity. Decorative writing and paragraphing appeared, often richly illustrated with gold leaf and elaborate paintings. As Christianity spread throughout Europe, it brought with it not only new ideas about life and God, but also updated punctuation. In the 6th century, Christian writers began to put in emphasis to defend the meaning of their work. Readers received more legible information.

The first steps in the formation of punctuation

In the 7th century, Isidore of Seville, the first archbishop who was named after his death as a blessed saint for his many religious merits, described an updated version of Aristophanes' punctuation. Pauses were also separated by dots: short (.), medium ( ) and long (˙). In addition to his contribution to the history of the development of writing, Isidore wrote the world's first encyclopedia. After the advent of the Internet, Isidore of Seville was chosen as the patron of the world information network, and although the Vatican says nothing about it, in many countries the day of the Set is celebrated on the birthday of the saint - April 4th.

At about the same time that Isidore introduced dots to emphasize pauses, Irish and Scottish monks, tired of separating unfamiliar Latin words, began to make breaks between them. The gaps made life much easier for both scribes and readers.

At the end of the 8th century, the king of nascent Germany, Charles, ordered a monk named Alcuin to develop a single alphabet that could be read by all his subjects, even in remote regions. This is how lower and upper case appeared, and legalized punctuation became an integral part of the new rules. This became one of the most important milestones in the history of the development of writing.

Pushed boundaries

Small points of Aristophanes began to be used everywhere. Writers began to expand the number of punctuation marks and used signs from musical notation for this. The first attempts to single out interrogative sentences appeared. The three dots of the original punctuation began to give way to other characters, until one dot remained at the end of the sentence.

In the 12th century, the Italian writer Buoncompagno de Signa proposed a completely new punctuation with two characters: a slash (/) to pause and a dash (-) to end a speech. The fate of the dash de Signa was lost in the centuries, and the invention of the slash was an unequivocal success, it was compact, easy to write and visually stood out from the rest of the signs. Soon she began to displace the point of Aristophanes, like a general-purpose comma or pauses, and "lazy" writers eventually changed her appearance to the usual one for us - (,).

Resurgence in the history of punctuation

The Renaissance became a landmark in the development of many sciences and arts, grammar did not stand aside, a mixture of ancient Greek dots was added: a colon and a question mark. A little later, the slash and dash familiar to us appeared. Writers and readers felt quite comfortable with the new signs, and when the Bible was published by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1450s, punctuation froze in its development. For about fifty years, the symbols practically did not change, only an exclamation mark appeared, the comma took on its usual form, and the dot of Aristophanes became a symbol of a complete stop of thought. The standardization of printing stopped the history of punctuation. Nothing has changed for centuries.

Unexpected turn

The use of computers has led to the fact that punctuation marks have begun to change again, and not only because of the many characters on the keyboard, but also due to the appearance of familiar emoticons that have begun to accentuate emotions. It turned out that the development of punctuation did not end, but simply froze in anticipation of a new technological breakthrough in order to introduce new designations into written speech. This is just the beginning, but people are already deciding how they will accentuate their thoughts and emotions for the next few hundred, maybe thousands of years.

Attention! Attention! We are punctuation marks!

Dots, sticks, hooks...
inconspicuous icons,
And while reading
Requires reading.

A. Shibaev

Punctuation marks! What's this? These are the periods and commas that we begin to get acquainted with in the first grade and that give us so much trouble in the ninth! But without them, nowhere! They help to more fully and accurately express the meaning of written speech. “The signs are placed according to the power of the mind,” wrote the founder of Russian grammar.

So let's not be like a schoolboy who in the old days wrote an essay without punctuation marks, at the end he depicted a lot of commas, dashes and colons, and under them he wrote: "March to places!" Although his method is very original!

Without the ability to punctuate, it is impossible to master written language. And without the development of written language, thanks to which human knowledge and experience are passed on from generation to generation, it is impossible to even imagine life today.

A dash is put if they want to show that there is a gap in some words in the message. Often a dash marks an omitted verb copula. A dash is used to indicate that one event follows another.

Because of the ambiguity, poets and writers love the dash, turning it into the main means of author's punctuation.

At the time, a hyphen was also considered a “lowercase sign” (as punctuation marks were called).

ellipsis

Near three

dot sisters,

So there is no end

At the line.

The ellipsis sign under the name “stop sign” is noted in 1831 in grammar, although its use is found in the practice of writing much earlier. Colloquially, an ellipsis is sometimes referred to as an "ellipsis".

There are two shades in the dots - incompleteness and uncertainty.

In addition, with the help of ellipsis indicate omissions in the text. Vladimir Nabokov: “The ellipsis must be representing traces on tiptoe of bygone words…”

Quotes

We are quotes, we are sisters,

That's how we got on

The history of this sign is interesting. In the meaning of a punctuation mark, this word began to be used only at the end of the 18th century. It is assumed that the initiative to introduce it into the practice of Russian written speech also belongs. Scientists believe that the origin of this word is not fully understood. Comparison with the Ukrainian name paws makes it possible to assume that it is formed from the verb to kavykat - "to hobble", "to limp". In Russian dialects, kavysh is "duckling", "gosling"; kavka - "frog". Thus, quotation marks are “traces from duck or frog legs”, “hook”, “squiggle”.

Quotation marks are used when the statement enclosed in them does not belong to the author. Most often they are used to mark the boundaries of direct speech or quotation. Sometimes quotation marks enclose words from which the writer wants to "disown".

Paragraph

A paragraph is also a paragraph indent; and a part of the text from one paragraph indent to the next paragraph indent, connected by a single thought, theme, idea, plot.

The appearance of paragraph indents is associated with a technical misunderstanding. In the past, text was usually typed without any indentation. The signs of the structural division of the text were entered with paint of a different color after typing the main text, and therefore an empty space was left for them. Probably, one day they forgot to enter the characters, but the resulting indented text read no worse, and since then the paragraphs have become firmly established in typographic practice.

A paragraph gives a book or manuscript a more aesthetic appearance, facilitates the process of reading to the eye, it can be considered as a literary device, it makes distinct groupings of emotions, ideas, images, the red line of the paragraph emphasizes the logical connection between ideas, displays the nature of the connection between emotions in a lyrical work.

The use of a paragraph is not provided for by any strictly established rules. The only restriction is that the beginning and end of a paragraph must not be in the middle of a sentence. In poetic speech, a paragraph coincides with a stanza.

The paragraph, as an artistic device, has not been studied almost at all. The problem is posed in Mikhail Lopatin's book “The Experience of Introduction to the Theory of Prose. Pushkin's stories.

For the Internet, a smiley is probably the same as a wheel for humanity. It has evolved from a fun drawing to a set of punctuation marks: a colon and a closing parenthesis. From an etymological point of view, everything is clear: "smile" in English is "smile".

Emoticons have spread around the world at the speed of the flu. Go to any chat and you will see that half of the information is transmitted through emoticons. Scientists who like to put everything on the shelves and come up with definitions for everything, call emoticons the words "emoticon" or "emoticon" (from the word "emotion") and write something like "an emoticon is a stylized image of a facial expression of a human face, implemented in pseudographics, in order to convey to the opponent the emotional state of the speaker.

Everything shows that emoticons are not a new punctuation, as some people think, but independent semantic units. However, emoji definitely have meaning and the ability to convey information. In other words, emoticons are a non-verbal code adapted for written communication.

Bibliography:

1. , Entertaining grammar

2. The boundary of punctuation, M., "Enlightenment", 1987

3. Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary. - M., 1990

4. Lopatin M. Experience of introduction to the theory of prose. Pushkin's stories.

5. Russian language. Encyclopedia. - M., 2007

6. Encyclopedic dictionary of a young philologist, M., 1984

Dear readers! We offer a task for scholars: determine who is depicted in the photographs in the text of the article.

The material was prepared by members of the Fantazers team as part of the project “Pay attention: We are punctuation marks!”

Andreeva Maria

When asked when the Slavic alphabet, which is the basis of the Russian alphabet, arose, many of us will confidently answer that the Slavic alphabet was created by the brothers Cyril and Methodius (863). The Russian alphabet was based on the Cyrillic alphabet, and annually on May 24 we celebrate the Day of Slavic Writing.

When did punctuation marks appear? Do we know enough about our history? mother tongue? Is it possible to correlate the very first punctuation marks with modern ones? In my work, I would like to highlight the topic of the history of punctuation marks, because at school, unfortunately, the history of punctuation marks is studied very little.

Download:

Preview:

GBOU OOSH with. Chetyrovka

Topic: "The history of the emergence

punctuation marks »

Completed by: Andreeva Maria,

9th grade student

Supervisor:

Filatova Elena Gennadievna,

Teacher of Russian language and literature

Samara 2014

I. Introduction. Why did I choose this topic? …………………… 3

II. Main part. The history of punctuation.

2.1. Why is punctuation necessary?................................................………..4 -5

2.2. Punctuation system…..……………………………...5

2.3. Periods in the development of punctuation..……………………..….....5

2.4. Manuscripts from the XI century…………………………………………..5-6

2.5 The advent of typography…………………………………..6-8

2.6 Ordering Russian punctuation…………………………..8

2.7 Functions of punctuation marks in the modern Russian language……………………………………………………………………9-12

III. Conclusion. Without punctuation marks it is impossible to imagine life today. …………………………….…………………….13-14

IV. References………………………………………………………………15

V.Appendix…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….16 -19

I Introduction

Why did I choose this topic?

When did punctuation marks appear? Do we know enough about the history of our native language? Is it possible to correlate the very first punctuation marks with modern ones?In my work, I would like to highlight the topic of the history of punctuation marks, because at school, unfortunately, the history of punctuation marks is studied very little.

I conducted a survey among the students of our school to identify the degree of awareness on this topic. The survey showed that we do not know the history of punctuation marks. It is not known what the period looked like and what the “semicolon” was originally called. 2% of students know that they used to put a cross instead of a dot. 100% of respondents agreed that the history of punctuation marks should be known (Appendix 1).

Punctuation is an integral part of our life. We use punctuation to express emotions. With the help of correctly placed punctuation marks, we can convey joy, surprise, threat, request, order.

Everything related to the history of the native language - topical . We must remember and preserve what was created by our ancestors.

Objective: to study theoretical material on the history of the emergence of punctuation marks,to trace,how the system of modern Russian punctuation developed.

To achieve this goal, I set myself the following TASKS :

find out what was before punctuation and how it was born;
analyze the history of the use of punctuation marks in the Russian language;
highlight the functions of punctuation marks in modern Russian.

Research methods

Theoretical:

Studying sources of information.

Practical:

Survey of students of the Chetyrovskaya school.

II. History of punctuation marks

1. Why do you need punctuation?

Why is punctuation necessary? Why are the letters of the alphabet not enough to make what is written understandable to the reader? After all, words are made up of letters denoting speech sounds, and speech is made up of words. But the fact is that to pronounce individual words one after another does not mean to make what is pronounced intelligible. Words in speech are combined into groups, between groups of words, and sometimes intervals of various lengths are made between individual words, on word groups or over individual words, either rise or fall in tone is made. And all this is not accidental, but subordinated certain rules: both intervals, and rises, and falls of tone (the so-called intonation) express certain shades of the meaning of speech segments. The writer must firmly know what semantic connotation he wants to give to his statement and its individual parts, and what method he must use for this.

With the advent of writing, written transmission of knowledge has received great development. But knowledge is one thing, and what we call literature is quite another. Remember how you feel when you read an exciting book? And the tears that this or that work causes? And what about the feeling of strength, the desire to break away and run to help, which you feel after reading the notes of a loved one? Because no one is telling you. You just look at the letters on the parchment that add up to words and that cause so many emotions inside you. And these unloved dots, commas and other icons play the biggest role in the perception of what is written. As Chekhov said, "punctuation marks serve as notes when reading."

Punctuation, like spelling, is part of the graphic system adopted for a given language, and must be as firmly mastered as the letters of the alphabet with their sound values so that the letter accurately and completely expresses the content of the statement. And in order for this content to be equally perceived by all readers, it is necessary that the meaning of punctuation marks be firmly established within one national language. It does not matter that the appearance of punctuation marks in different languages may be the same, but the meaning and, consequently, their use are different. It is important that all those who write and read in one language or another have the same understanding of what this or that punctuation mark expresses.

2. Punctuation system

Punctuation is a collection of punctuation rules, as well as the punctuation system itself. There are 10 punctuation marks in the modern Russian punctuation system: dot [.], comma [,], semicolon [;], ellipsis […], colon [:], question mark [?], exclamation mark [!], dash [ -], brackets [()] and quotation marks [" "]. The names of most punctuation marks in Russian are native Russian, and the term punctuation marks itself goes back to the verb to punctuate "stop", "stop in motion".

3. Periods in the development of punctuation

Three periods are noted in the development of punctuation in Russian writing: the first covers manuscripts from the 11th century to the introduction of book printing in Russia; the second period of early printed books before the correction of the text Holy Scripture under Patriarch Nikon (XVII century); third period - to date (Appendix 2)

1. Manuscripts of the 11th century. - 16th century printing

2. Early printed books of the 15th - early 17th centuries.

3. 18th century - until now

Punctuation marks have been around for a long time. But their number and rules of use gradually changed.

4. Manuscripts from the 11th century

Handwritten books were written without spaces between words, without capital and lowercase letters (except for the initial letter at the beginning of the page, which also did not appear immediately).
If we look at ancient handwritten books, we will not find the usual punctuation marks. Many people think that there were no punctuation marks at all until the 15th century. Indeed, there were no signs obeying punctuation rules. But there were pause signs. Dots can be seen in the manuscript of an ancient book.

The dot is the oldest sign. It is already found in the monuments of ancient Russian writing. However, its use at that time was different from the modern one. The point was placed not at the bottom of the line, but above - in the middle of it; moreover, in that period, even individual words were not separated from each other. For example: at the time the holiday is approaching ... (Arkhangelsk Gospel, XI century) (Appendix 3).

Dot, colon, three dot pyramid, four dot rhombus. In my opinion, they tell the reader themselves. The geometric figure of the cross, the Trinity, Jesus Christ - the God-Man. These are not punctuation marks - obstacles, but support, help in a difficult task - reading and understanding the text. What was the reader of the book supposed to do when he reached this sign? They make you stop. To think about something or someone, to do something. Not a punctuation rule to remember, but, probably, a prayer to read. The cross later turned into a quad, and then into a dot - a sign of dividing the text into sentences. Let's take a closer look at them.

Period in the middle of a string (corresponds to a comma)

Quadruple (a conceivable cross, corresponds to a dot)

Crosses of various types (placed to divide the sacred text into verses). (Appendix No. 4)

Interestingly, in part of the text of the Ostromirov Gospel (1056 - 1057), a cross and a wavy vertical line - “serpent” are also used, the functions of which are not clearly defined (Appendix No. 5). "Cross" and "serpent" are written in red, the point - in black, like the text itself. These signs originating from notes: on top - a sign called "horn" in ancient notation, below - "bench".

Punctuation marks (period, cross, wavy line) divided the text mainly into semantic segments or marked a stop in the work of the scribe.

Here is the explanation of the word point given by V.I. small speck."

The dot can rightly be considered the ancestor of Russian punctuation. It is no coincidence that this word (or its root) entered the name of such characters as a semicolon, colon, ellipsis. And in the Russian language of the 16th-18th centuries, the question mark was called the question point, the exclamation mark was the point of surprise. In the grammatical writings of the 16th century, the doctrine of punctuation marks was called "the doctrine of the power of points" or "about the point mind", and in the grammar of Lawrence Zizanias (1596) the corresponding section was called "On points".

Since the 15th century, separate spelling has been increasingly observed, such a punctuation mark appears that we also use, but for us it is an “empty space”, that is, a space.

5. The advent of printing

The need for punctuation began to be acutely felt in connection with the emergence and development of printing (XV-XVI centuries). In the middle of the 15th century, the Italian typographers Manutius invented punctuation for European writing, which was accepted in general terms by most European countries and still exists.

The most common punctuation mark in Russian is the comma. This word is found in the 15th century. According to P. Ya. Chernykh, the word comma is the result of substantiation (transition into a noun) of the passive participle of the past tense from the verb coma (sya) - “to hook (sya)”, “to hurt”, “to stab”. V. I. Dal connects this word with the verbs wrist, comma, stammer - “stop”, “delay”. This explanation, in our opinion, seems reasonable.

The semicolon, which appeared later, was also initially used in the meaning of the question mark. The next punctuation marks were question and exclamation marks.

The exclamation mark [!] is also used to express exclamation (surprise) in the grammars of M. Smotrytsky and V. E. Adodurov. The rules for setting the “surprising sign” are defined in the “Russian Grammar” by M. V. Lomonosov (1755).

The question mark [?] has been found in printed books since the 16th century, but to express a question it was fixed much later, only in the 18th century. Initially, in the meaning of [?] there was [;] .

In the Grammar of Literature by Melenty Smotrytsky (1619), the first paired punctuation mark appeared - parentheses. Previously, this sign was called "capacious."

The colon [:] has been used as a separator since the end of the 16th century. It is mentioned in the grammars of Lavrenty Zizaniy, Melety Smotrytsky (1619), as well as in the first Russian grammar of the Dolomonos period by V. E. Adodurov (1731).

Later characters include the dash [-] and the ellipsis […]. There is an opinion that the dash was invented by N. M. Karamzin (Appendix 6). However, it has been proven that this sign was found in the Russian press already in the 60s of the 18th century, and N. M. Karamzin only contributed to the popularization and consolidation of the functions of this sign. For the first time, the dash sign [-] under the name “silent woman” was described in 1797 in the “Russian Grammar” by A. A. Barsov.

The ellipsis sign […] under the name “stop sign” is noted in 1831 in the grammar of A. Kh. Vostokov (Appendix 6), although its use occurs in writing practice much earlier.

No less interesting is the history of the appearance of the sign, which later became known as the quotation mark [""]. The word quotation marks in the meaning of a musical (hook) sign occurs in the 16th century, but in the meaning of a punctuation mark it began to be used only at the end of the 18th century. It is assumed that the initiative to introduce this punctuation mark into the practice of Russian written speech (as well as a dash) belongs to N. M. Karamzin. Scientists believe that the origin of this word is not fully understood. Comparison with the Ukrainian name paws makes it possible to assume that it is formed from the verb kavykat - “to hobble”, “to limp”. In Russian dialects, kavysh is “duckling”, “gosling”; kavka - "frog". Thus, quotation marks are “traces from duck or frog legs”, “hook”, “squiggle”.

As you can see, the names of most punctuation marks in Russian are native Russian. The names of only two signs were borrowed. Hyphen (dash) - from it. Divis (from lat. divisio - separately) and dash (line) - from the French tiret

The first attempts to comprehend punctuation in Russia are associated with names M. Greka,

L. Zizania, then - M. Smotrytsky.

Punctuation marks developed gradually in the history of the Russian language and acquired modern look only by the 19th century.

6. Ordering Russian punctuation

The beginning of the scientific study of punctuation was laid by M. V. Lomonosov (Appendix 6) in the Russian Grammar. Today we use the Rules of Spelling and Punctuation adopted in 1956.

M. V. Lomonosov gives an exact list of punctuation marks used by that time in Russian printed literature, sets out the rules for their use in a system, formulating these rules on a semantic and grammatical basis.

The greatest merit in streamlining Russian punctuation in the 19th century belongs to Academician Ya.K. publications until 1917. Grotto sets out in detail the history and principles of Russian writing, difficult cases of spelling, gives a scientifically systematized and theoretically meaningful set of spelling and punctuation rules. The rules for the use of punctuation marks formulated by him are valuable in that they sum up the searches in the field of punctuation of previous authors. Grot's ordered punctuation, as well as spelling, rules have entered the practice of the school and publishing houses and, at their core, with minor changes, are still in effect today.

The fundamental foundations of Russian punctuation remain unchanged, which contributes to its stability, although individual punctuation rules are periodically refined and specified in connection with the development of Russian grammatical theory and the Russian literary language as a whole. Today we use the Rules of Spelling and Punctuation adopted in 1956.

7. Functions of punctuation marks in modern

in Russian

The principles of punctuation are interrelated and in the same punctuation fact we can find a combination of different principles, although the leading one is syntactic (structural). Modern Russian punctuation relies on the meaning, structure, and rhythmic-intonational division of the sentence in their interaction. Therefore, Russian punctuation is quite flexible and, along with mandatory rules, contains indications that allow punctuation options.

Punctuation marks are divided into:

highlighting signs that serve to mark the boundaries of a syntactic construction that is introduced into a sentence to supplement, explain its members or the entire sentence, explain its members or the entire sentence as a whole, the intonation-semantic highlighting of any part of the sentence, as well as to indicate the boundaries of the construction containing the name of the person or object to which the speech is addressed, or expressing the subjective attitude of the writer to his statement, or shaping someone else's statement: two commas - as a single pair sign, two dashes - as a single pair sign, quotation marks, brackets;
separating signs that serve to distinguish between independent sentences, their parts (main and subordinate clauses, the subject group and the predicate group), homogeneous syntactic elements (homogeneous members of the sentence, subordinate subordinate clauses), as well as to indicate the type of sentence for the purpose of the statement, the emotional the nature of the sentence, for a speech break: dot, question mark, exclamation point, comma, semicolon, colon, dash, ellipsis.

Consider the modern concept of punctuation marks:

Dot (.) in modern Russian written speech, put at the end of a declarative or motivating sentence: “It was evening. The sky was dark. The waters flowed quietly "(A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin"). The dot is used in abbreviated spelling of words (for example: etc., etc.).

Question mark (?)- a punctuation mark used to express a question. In modern Russian written speech, a question mark is put:

at the end of an interrogative sentence, including after incomplete interrogative sentences following one after another: “Who are you? Live? Dead? (A.A. Blok, "Poems about a beautiful lady");

in interrogative sentences with homogeneous members after each homogeneous member in order to dismember the question: “But what am I to whom? before them? to the whole universe?

(A.S. Griboedov "Woe from Wit");

Exclamation point (!)- a punctuation mark used to express an exclamation. In modern Russian writing, an exclamation mark is placed:

at the end of an exclamatory sentence: "Long live the revolution, joyful and speedy!" (V. Mayakovsky, poem "V. I. Lenin");
in exclamatory sentences with homogeneous members after each homogeneous member to indicate the emotional discontinuity of speech: “I rejected everything: laws! conscience! faith!" (A.S. Griboedov "Woe from Wit");
after words pronounced with exclamatory intonation - sentences, appeals, interjections, standing at the beginning (in poetic speech - and in the middle) of a sentence or used independently: “Old man! I heard many times that you saved me from death ”(M.Yu. Lermontov“ Mtsyri ”);
in brackets inside or after a quote to express the author's attitude (irony, indignation, etc.) to the quoted text.

Comma (,) - the most common punctuation mark, acting in a separating function (one comma) or in an excretory function (paired punctuation mark - two commas). The comma is used:

between homogeneous members of a sentence (connected without unions, repeating or paired unions, non-repeating unions with an opposing or concessive meaning) and between repeating words: “Winter was waiting, nature was waiting” ( A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin");

between simple sentences that are part of a complex non-union or compound sentence: "The sun went behind the mountains, but it was still light"

(M.Yu. Lermontov, poem "Demon");

between the main and the subordinate clause (or to highlight the subordinate clause on both sides), between subordinate clauses: “Go along the free path, where the free mind leads you” (A.S. Pushkin, poem “To the Poet”);
to separate or highlight isolated members of a sentence, with words or groups of words that limit or clarify other words in the sentence: “In the distance, closer to the grove, axes thudded dully” (I.S. Turgenev “Notes of a Hunter”);
with comparative turns: "like a storm, death takes the groom" (A.S. Pushkin "Boris Godunov");
to separate or highlight words that are not grammatically related to the members of the sentence (introductory words, addresses, interjections, affirmative, negative and interrogative words): “With his eyes, it seems that he would like to eat everyone.” (I.A. Krylov, fable "Wolf in the kennel").

Semicolon (;)in modern Russian writing is put:

in complex non-union and compound sentences, if their parts are significantly common and contain commas, for example: “The pale gray sky was brighter, colder, bluer; the stars now twinkled with a faint light, then disappeared; the earth is damp, the leaves are sweating ... ”(I.S. Turgenev“ Bezhin Meadow ”).
in a simple sentence between homogeneous members of the sentence, if they are significantly common and contain commas, for example: “The same obscure objects vaguely appeared in the darkness: in some distance a black wall, the same moving spots; next to me is the croup of a horse, which, waving its tail, widely spread its legs: its back is in a white Circassian coat ... ". (L.N. Tolstoy, collected works, story "Raid").

A colon (:) is put:

before the enumeration, if it is preceded by a generalizing word or words, for example, somehow, namely, for example: “A large fish fights with a spear, such as: pikes, catfish, asps, pike perches” (S.T. Aksakov “Hunting with a spear » );
in a complex non-union sentence, if the second part reveals the content of the first part, complements the first or indicates the reason for what is said in the first part, for example: people "(M.Yu. Lermontov" Hero of Our Time ");
after the author's words introducing direct speech, for example: "I look after him and think:" Why do such people live. (M. Gorky "At the bottom").

Dash - (French tiret, from tirer - pull) - a punctuation mark in the form of a horizontal bar (-), used in simple and complex sentences, is put:

between the subject and the predicate: "Lgov is a large steppe village" (I.S. Turgenev "Notes of a hunter");
in front of a generalizing word after homogeneous members: “Hope and a swimmer - the whole sea swallowed up” (I.A. Krylov, works in 2 volumes. “The Old Man and the Three Young”);
before a separate appendix, usually standing at the end of a sentence: "I had a cast-iron teapot with me - my only joy in traveling around the Caucasus."

(M.Yu. Lermontov "The Hero of Our Time");

between members of a sentence to express surprise or opposition: “I wanted to travel around the whole world - and didn’t travel a hundredth” ( A.S. Griboyedov “Woe from Wit”);
in a complex non-union sentence to indicate a quick change of events, to express a sharp contrast, to express temporary, conditionally investigative and other relationships: “Ignat lowered his gun, the gun misfired” ( A.P. Chekhov “White-browed”);
between replicas in a dialogue given without a paragraph, or at the beginning of replicas given from a paragraph;
to indicate the breakdown of a simple sentence into verbal groups, which often happens when a member of a sentence is omitted:

“I ask you: do the workers need to be paid?” (A.P. Chekhov "Ivanov");

“Everything is obedient to me, but I am nothing” (A.S. Pushkin “Eugene Onegin”);

after a direct speech in front of the author’s words: ““ How, it’s boring!” I exclaimed involuntarily ”(M.Yu. Lermontov“ A Hero of Our Time ”).

Dots - (...)- a punctuation mark in the form of three adjacent dots. Dots are used:

to indicate incompleteness or a break in the statement caused by the speaker’s excitement or an unexpected transition to another thought, as well as to indicate a pause that emphasizes the text following it: “Without receiving an answer, Dunya raised her head ... and fell on the carpet with a cry.” (A.S. Pushkin "The Stationmaster");

when quoting (before the beginning of a quotation, in the middle or after it) to indicate that a frequently quoted text has been omitted. In order to distinguish a gap in a quote from the author's ellipsis, in some special editions a special technique is used: in the case of a gap, not three, but two dots are placed side by side.

Quotes are used to textually bring someone else's speech, other people's phrases, and even individual words that the writer does not consider his own (specific intonation).

Parentheses indicate that the thought given in them completely falls out of the general course of speech, which is expressed by a different pitch of what is pronounced in brackets.

There are also additional written characters that do not belong to punctuation marks. it hyphen, space between words, apostrophe. They do not belong to punctuation marks, as they are not related to phrasal intonation.

III. Conclusion

Without punctuation marks it is impossible to imagine life today

In all countries, punctuation has the same purpose: to make speech more expressive, accessible and understandable.

Punctuation marks arose from the need to divide the written text into segments of greater or lesser independence in accordance with the semantic structure of speech. Thus, the first punctuation marks denoted pauses of greater or lesser duration within the written text. It goes without saying that writers could only be satisfied with such primitive punctuation during the initial stages of writing. And indeed, with the development of writing, especially after the introduction and spread of printing, the punctuation system became more complicated and deepened, until, in a relatively short period, it reached the state that is still preserved.

Modern Russian punctuation relies on the meaning, structure, and rhythmic-intonational division of the sentence in their interaction. Therefore, Russian punctuation is quite flexible and, along with mandatory rules, contains indications that allow punctuation options.

Punctuation is a living, mobile, developing, historically established system. Summing up the centuries-old history of writing and printing, it can be seen that it has steadily developed towards an increase in both the number and variety of functions of the signs used - this was facilitated by the improvement of the methods of presenting information, and the complication of human activity and the emergence of its new forms led to the emergence of new categories of written signs that appeared as a response to the need for new types of information.

The invention of printing, the spread of literacy and paper correspondence, the transition of the book from the field of highly specialized, mainly religious texts, to the field of sources of diverse secular content required the introduction of punctuation marks that help convey intonational and semantic features, dialogues, etc.

Over time, punctuation has changed and become more complex. But the Russian language only benefited from this. The rich punctuation of the Russian language makes it the most beautiful language peace. The richness of intonational shades allows it to be a poetic, picturesque language, according to many linguists and writers, the most beautiful language in the world.

The topic "The History of Punctuation" will always be relevant, because the Russian language does not exist in a frozen form. It is constantly evolving, changing, and punctuation, as a branch of the science of language, will also develop.The history of punctuation is as interesting as the past of any phenomenon.

IV. Bibliography

Aksakov S. "Notes of a rifle hunter of the Orenburg province", stories and memoirs of a hunter about different hunts. Moscow 1997
Babaitseva V. V., L. D. Chesnokova. Russian language. Theory. Moscow 1994
Baranov M. T. “Russian language: reference materials: tutorial for students." St. Petersburg 1998
Block A. Poems. Moscow. Publishing house "Moscow worker" 1975
Vakhrusheva T.V. Complete collection of spelling and punctuation. – M.: AST-PRESS, 1999.
Gorky M. "At the bottom". Moscow 1997
Granik G. G., Bondarenko S. M. "Secrets of Punctuation". 1998
Griboyedov A. S. "Woe from Wit." Publishing house "Children's Literature". Leningrad 1964
Davydova N.V. Gospel and Old Russian Literature. Moscow 1992
KrylovI. Works in 2 volumes. "The old man and three young", "Two pigeons", "The wolf in the kennel".
Lermontov M. Yu. Selected works. Moscow. " Fiction» 1983
Mayakovsky V. Poems. Moscow, 1981
Osipov B. I. History of Russian writing. Omsk 1990
Pushkin A.S. Dramatic works, prose. Publishing house "Fiction". Moscow 1981
Pushkin A. S. "Eugene Onegin" (a novel in verse). Moscow. "Children's Literature" 1977
Tolstoy L. N. Fables, fairy tales, epics. Leo Tolstoy and children. Moscow. "Children's Literature" 1975

100%

Do you think signs are necessary?

punctuation?

100%

Do you know what the first point looked like?

Do you know what the original name of the "semicolon" was?