Trends of Punctuation in English and Lithuanian

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21 Feb 2018

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Introduction

The world of knowledge always tempted the scientists of any spheres. The nature, human body and brain gave birth to the many branches of science such as physics, medicine and philosophy. The analysis of a language was also one of the most popular branches of research of the linguists and grammarians of the fifteenth century. The unbounded interest in the development and variation of a language, and its constructions presented to the world the new approaches analysing the oral and written forms of any language: the phonology, phonetics, grammar and semantics. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the scholars focused on the study of sounds and their pronunciation. The phoneticians and linguists analysed the origin of vowels and consonants, their structure and the interactions with other sounds, proffering different theories on the usage of them. A few decades later, the majority of scientists turned their focus on the analysis of a communication, basically, the orally expressed language. They gave birth to the new branch of the analysis of language: the rhetoric. Analysing the language as the changeable system of sounds and their combinations, the scientists believed that oral presentation of a language could be divided into smaller units, which were distinguished with the assistance of hearing. Moreover, this division could help to show the purpose of the thought expressed, not only indicating the mood of a speaker, but also presenting the correct function of a thought in a sentence.

However, the sixteenth century and the growing needs of the written texts, made the scholars to realize that the language was more complex system of communication. The influence of a church encumbered the scientists. Consequently, the linguists had to concentrate not only on the structure of a sentence and its correlation in a paragraph; they also had to find a method to inbreathe the emotions to the written expressions of thoughts, that the created sentences on the paper would have the same intonation as it was produced orally in a conversation. In order to achieve this purpose the punctuation was created.

Motivational basis of the research. The grammarians paid great attention to the phonology, syntax, grammar, the structure of a sentence and its expressions in the oral and written forms. They noticed that the oral structure of the thought cared equal importance of the one visually presented. Moreover, the scientists realized that fair influence was made on the comprehension of a thought or a text. They believed that the punctuation was the basis not only in the specification of the purpose of a sentence, but also in the identification of a style of a text presented. In order to understand the purpose and the usage of marking, the scientists analysed punctuation from different trends of linguistic. Thus, the punctuation was divided into two different traditions: the rhetorical and grammatical.

From rhetorical point of view, the composition played the most important role in any kind of communication. The grammarians assumed that composition was a foundation-stone in the science of rhetoric. They presented a theory that a good text or a paragraph depended on three components: “clear thinking, reading the best and most vigorous writers; and frequent practice in writing, along with careful polishing of what we have written.” ( Meiklejohn J. 1915:175) In other words, the good presentation of a text, especially a thought expressed in written or oral form, depended on the correct and considered structure of a sentence. The linguists, on the contrary, saw oral speech as a “multimodal, multi channel event that encoded a lot of redundant information.” (Dawnkings J. Breath, Grammar, and Proper Punctuation 1925:1) According to them, people varied the intensity of speech; modulated the intonation, making their voice to rise or to fall as well as using the gestures, body language and facial expressions. These actions provided additional information on the message produced. The linguists also assumed that the punctuation was expressed with help of intonation, pitch and pauses. Later, these methods took the role in the grammatical division of a sentence. Intonation in written texts served as “a controller of meaning” providing “more phrasing information to the reader.” (Flippo R.F. Punctuationand intonation effects on the perception of texts 2001:133). Pitch, on the other hand, indicated the emotional state of a speaker. Rising or falling tone of any word uttered showed the feelings of a communicator either anger, the cry, warring or command. The body language and gestures also assisted in the comprehension of a thought expressed.

Grammatical tradition of punctuation, however, lost these “visual and auditory channels leaving only words and grammatical structures to carry the message.” (Dawnkings J. 1925:2) The grammatical punctuation was used as system of marks that separated or combined the words, sentences or their parts. The linguists assumed that the main function of the punctuation marks was to present a correct meaning of a thought and a speaker or writer was responsible for this action. However, the grammarians soon realized that the liberal rules of punctuation not only provided the freedom of a writer to express their thoughts in the structure they wanted; frequently, this method of punctuating texts led the readers into the ambiguity. Although, the grammarians tried to present and explain the grammatical rules in the simplest way as possible, many people as well as students yet confronted with the difficulties in punctuating any sentence or a text. Therefore, the interest in the punctuation as intonational device expressing the thought of a written language and the arising difficulties analysing the sentence from structural point of view in both languages English and Lithuanian languages have formed the motivation basis of the research.

Different groups of linguists understood the conception of the punctuation differently. Ones concentrated on the intonational part of the sentence and analysed the punctuation marks as the markers of the mood or emotional state of a reader or a writer. Others believed that marking consisted of the strict, sometimes called dogmatic, grammatical rules which could divide the sentence for the further graphical analysis. From these opinions the traditional (rhetorical) and modern (grammatical) concepts of the punctuation appeared.

Although, the traditional point of view of punctuation lost the attention in the beginning of the sixteenth century, more and more the grammarians chose to focus their attention on the analysis of the text from the rhetorical point of view, and to practice this way of teaching the grammar, especially punctuation, concentrating on the fluency and the sound of the thought, rather than the structure or strict order of the words. They were of the opinion that the richness and fluency of any text was provided through the intonation and the way to achieve that correct punctuation was required. It may seem that the grammatical point of view had the same function: to indicate a sentence and provide the fluency of the thoughts or texts. However, modern view of punctuation concentrated on the structure of a sentence. It divided a text into units, sentences, and their parts. It indicated the beginning or the end of the thought presented in sentence; provides the general information about a certain type of a sentence such as declarative, affirmative, or question. Grammatical analysis distinguished the sentence into units, while rhetorical point of view presented the sentence analysing its “voice” expressed while reading in silent or out loud.

The purpose of the research paper attempts both: the introduction of the punctuation from the traditional and modern points of views and the comparative analysis of punctuation marks comma and dashas well as their interactions with the structure and meaning of a sentence of the texts in English and Lithuanian languages.

The main tasks for attaining the aim are:

  • to introduce a reader to the major trends of punctuation
  • to collect the empirical data coherent with the variation of the punctuation and its application of rules on the original texts and their translations
  • to analyse and compare the system and the usage of the punctuation marks of both languages: Lithuanian and English

In order to fulfil the research, the analytical, interpretive and comparative methods have been used. The study of analytical method is used for the analysis of scientific literature sources related to the punctuation, its development and the difficulty of its usage. The application of interpretive methods is necessary for the presentation of the different aspects and ideas presented in the analysis the punctuation. The comparative method provides the possibility to distinguish the different functions of punctuation marks used in the texts of scientific and belles-lettres styles.

Literature review. Analysing the punctuation from the very ground, it appeared that the first ever used mark in presenting a sentence was a “space.” Its function was to indicate a short pause between the words either in oral or written forms. Though rhetoric was an ancient science of speaking, it also had some changes including the development of new theories on its function. Defining the rhetoric, it might be said that this science was a system of five canons: “inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria and pronuntiatio.” (NauckÅ«naitÄ— 2000: 12) These canons served as the guiding lines to the correct and clear way of a speech presented. Though, the classicists and modernists of rhetoric analysed the texts according to these five canons, they expressed different opinions on the relationship between a speaker and communication. The classicists believed that the mind was the most important feature in a human, while the main purpose of rhetoric was to persuade the listener. The followers of the modern rhetoric, on the contrary, stated that the significant part in a human was the feelings. The expression of feelings used in the communication provided the mutual understanding between the speaker and the listener. Concentrating on the relationship of speaker and listener, the modernists drew a conclusion that the main purpose of rhetoric was to inform the listeners rather than to persuade.

Passing decades, however, made the linguists to realize the significant changes in the conception of rhetoric. Many of them noticed that the rhetoric started to be used an indicator of stylistics. Meiklejohn saw the rhetoric as “the art of putting sentences together.” (Meiklejohn J. M. D. English Grammar, its history and literature 1915: 175) He stated that “a text has to be presented clear, coherent and vivid. “(1915: 175) To achieve this, the writer had to know the grammar, sentence structure, and the particularity of language and its clarity. Rhetorical approach of punctuation presented the punctuation marks as indicators of the intonation. The term of intonation referred “to a means for conveying information in speech which is independent of the words and their sounds.” (Nolan F. 2006:1) According to Francis Nolan, the intonation fulfilled several tasks in analysing language. Intonation “signalled grammatical structure, […] reflected the information structure of an utterance, highlighting constituents of importance.” (2006:1) The punctuation marks, used in the field rhetoric analysis, provided a reader the stylistically presented text. In the text, the punctuation marks indicated the pitch (beginning or the end of the sentence), tone (the mood or attitude of a speaker), and pauses (the length of time, used between the words). Each mark had its own function, such as presenting a request, an order or command. In other words, punctuation provided a reader vivid and natural utterance of a language, which was very similar to the conversation. The usage of a specific punctuation mostly depended on the style the text or a paragraph presented. Therefore, it might be assumed that stylistics also contributed to the rhetoric. Knowing the style or genre of a written text (whether it was scientific, belles-letters or essay) it was easy to notice a particular structure of the sentences, which characterised the punctuation. A text, written on the scientific purpose, had more complicated structure of punctuation than the belles-letters. Long complex sentences, unemotional, specific terminology and concrete language pictured the scientific style, where the basic punctuation marks appeared to be comma, semicolon and colon. On the contrary, the belles-letters style and essay offered more liberal marking system of a text using the figures of speech such as parenthesis, similes or periphrasis. These figures of speech often played the role of a text colouring.

Župerka K. in his work Stilistika showed the punctuation as a tool of a rhetoric, where the words provided the emotional shade of a sentence and the marks only indicated the mood of the speaker. Walker J., however, offered a different explanation of punctuation. According to him, punctuation was a system of principles that arose” from nature of the living voice, from the perception of harmony in the ear, and from a certain super addition to the senesce of language, of which grammar took no account.” (Walker J. A rhetorical grammar 1829:40) This kind of attitude provided the basic explanation of the prediction of a mark. In order to present the actual intonation, used in any conversation or written text, the writers concentrated on the melody of a thought, rather than on the correct structure of a sentence. They wanted to save the natural fluency of words and sentences produced in the written texts, therefore, most of writers focused on the intonational part of a sentence, and its alteration during the conveyance of a correct meaning of a thought. Intonation, especially the rising or falling tones, played as the indicators of emotions of a speaker as well as the directive in the determination of a sentence type.

From structural point of view the punctuation belonged to the syntax - “a device of the communication and the expression of thoughts, presented in the form of colloquial language or written text”. (Labutis V. Lietuvių kalbos sintaksÄ— 2002: 7) Presenting punctuation as a “device of the syntax”( Šarčević 1997:179), the grammarians and linguists concentrated on the functional structure of marking a sentence. The punctuation marks served as the indicators of the sentence or a text. They separated or combined particular parts of a sentence, or the whole units, marked the beginning or the end of thought. Other function of the marks was to present a clear, correct and emotional sentences used in silent reading, as they would be produced in oral communication with all specific details such as tone, intonation or pitch. Mcelroy J. presented the punctuation as a system “ultimately controlled by the principles of construction or thought that depended upon the usage only so far as the usage truly represented these laws of thought and construction.”(Mcelroy 1878:1) He assumed that the choice of punctuation marks and their quantity used in a text was “a question of taste” and depended on a writer. Although, clearly presented conception of the liberal punctuation gave the freedom to the creators of texts, it also influenced the text structure and incorrectly used punctuation, which let the reader or listener to the ambiguity and mistakenly interpreted meaning of a thought. Therefore, the liberty of a writer to choose the punctuating marks according to his point of view, in modern English grammar was replaced by the strict and concrete rules of punctuation.

Analysing Lithuanian, on contrary, it might be said that the modern punctuation of this language were taught and used as a strict system of the rules, indicating the way of punctuating a text. Recent research, however, presented a “liberal tendency of the usage of punctuation.” (SpingytÄ— M. 2010:3)SpingytÄ— M. stated that “this liberation provided to the writer a possibility to correct the emotional weight of a sentence.” (2010:3) It was a choice of a writer to mark or emphasize a specific word or part of a sentence, which, according to him, might have some additional or influential meaning. However, there was a possibility that this kind of liberalisation might negatively affect the functions of separate punctuation marks. The liberal punctuation rules lessened the specific function of each punctuation mark, leaving a writer to decide which marking was better to be used. It might be stated that the liberal punctuation concentrated more on the intonation rather than grammatical structure of the sentence. This conclusion is based on an analysis of silent reading, which was more influenced by the visual usage of intonation and tone, and less- by the grammatical structure.

The empirical data of the research.The primary resources of the bachelor paper are taken from the works: Expression of the Communicative Function of Language in Punctuation by SpingytÄ— M; Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics by Lyons J, and the Forsyte sagaby Galsworthy J. The examples used in the analysis of the punctuation marks are taken from Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics and the Forsyte saga, and their translations to the Lithuanian language.

The structure of the research. The bachelor paper consists of the introduction, two main sections, conclusions and the references of the works used. The first part of the research introduces the reader to the two concepts of the punctuation, its variation and the application in the different fields of study. The first section contains the analysis of the punctuation marks from the traditional and modern points of view, i.e. the study of punctuation marks from rhetorical and grammatical fields, and their influence to the meaning of a context.

The second part of the research paper provides the analysis on the system of punctuation, comparing the specific punctuation marks such as comma,dash and hyphen in English and Lithuanian languages, used in the texts of scientific and belles-lettres styles. The figures, presented in the second part were used to indicate the functions and the spread of their usage.

Part I

The major trends of punctuation

Punctuation has been an inseparable part of written or spoken language. The punctuation marks, which served only as indicators of the elocution at the beginning of the fifteenth century, quickly influenced other parts of science: grammar, syntax and nowadays widely analysed field of the programming.

Through centuries, the formed theories of the purpose and the usage of punctuation marks intrigued the experts and scientists of any language. The grammarians such as George Puttenham and Simon Daines were the first ones who provided the classification of the English punctuation marks from the rhetorical point of view in their works The Arte of English Poesie and Orthoepia Anglicana. The main purpose was to bring, at least, the basic order of punctuation marks, which were missed in the works of twelve century. The biggest merit was to be given to the grammarian Ben Johnson, who systemized the punctuation and provided its analysis from the syntactical point of view.This approach of the punctuation was used till the beginning of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, the Johnson's analysis had not provided a specific usage of marks; the writers used “commas with every subordinate clause and separable phrase.”(Encyclopaedia Britannica Punctuation in English since 16002008:85) Therefore, analyzing the texts of the middle and early modern English, the inordinate usage of the comma usually is found in those texts.

Later decades brought more clarified analysis of the punctuation marks. The grammarians classified and structuralised the punctuation marks according to their purpose or functions. Punctuation became a significant part of structure and cohesion of any text. The deeper analysis of the text revived the interest of grammarians in punctuation not only from rhetorical point of view, but of grammatical as well. Punctuation became important attribute of grammar for the expression of thoughts and the correct understanding of meaning of a sentence. It did “conduce to make a written language more effective, by exhibiting with greater precision and definiteness the ideas, feelings and emotions of an author.” (Wilson J. A treatise on English punctuation 1856: 2) Therefore, the main aim of the writers was to inbreathe the same intonational expression and emotional influence to the written texts, which was used in the speech and oral communication.

1.1. Rhetorical tradition of punctuation

Rhetoric was the oldest science that analysed a language from the oral perspective. Defined as “the Art of Persuasion”and “artistic use of language for the sake of aesthetic effects”(Jonge C. 2008:49), rhetoric also served as the guide to correct pronunciation and rhythm, used in speaking or the speech presentations. (Walker J. 1829: ii) Intonation, pitch, the length of pause, all these elements were classified as important features used in simple communication or presenting a speech. Moreover, they not only presented a language as a rhythmical system of sounds, they also provided additional information about the speech and the speaker himself. The rhetoricians believed that these “elements of language [were] physical: the noise words made and the rhythm of their relationship.” (Tredinnick M. Writing well 2008: 14) In other words, they had the ability to change the meaning of a sentence produced, when the pitch or tone was used incorrectly.

Since the oral communication was the first human step towards the analysis of a language as a separate field, rhetoric had to carry two functions: to correct the prosody of oral language and to present the basic grammar, in this case- punctuation. The rhetoricians stated that the speech of any style provided to audience had to respond to five basic questions, also called cannons: a) inventio, b) dispositio, c) elocutio, d) memoria and e) pronuntiatio.” (NauckÅ«naitÄ— 2000: 12) Each of the canons had specific function which was needed in order to express the thoughts in correct and beautiful manner of speaking.

  1. Inventio was used to gather and classify the material related to the topic. The speaker had to specify the information used in writing a speech.
  2. The term dispositio stood for the enunciation. Its purpose was to group the elements of language logically.
  3. Elocutio (style) served as the indicator of a speech presented. It was used as guiding line identifying a style of the written text and the correct grammatical usage of language.
  4. Memoria (memorization). Each speech, presented to the audience, needed to be learnt by heart.
  5. Pronuntiatio (speaking). The purpose of this canon was to present the speech in correct manner of articulation and gestures. A speaker had to pay attention to the intonation, pitch, tone of the speaking voice, especially, in order to convey the correct meaning of the thought; apart from the articulation, a speaker needed to use the gestures that convinced the meaning of a though expressed.

The rhetoricians believed that, being correctly used, these canons could present the perfect creation of written or spoken work. However, rhetoric was used not only the elocution, it also involved the concrete cycle of transformation of a thought to a word. In other words, the silent or loud reading also was under the influence of the rhetoric. The reading itself was regarded as a “system of rules, which teaches us to pronounce written composition with justness, energy, variety, and ease”. (Walker J. 1829:39).Thus, it might be assumed that the reader needed to use a combination of rhetoric and grammar, in order to understand a text correctly, and to convey the correct meaning to the listener (if a text was read out loud).

The rhetoric, mostly, the communication itself, involved every part of human life: “thought, language, voice and action.”(NauckÅ«naitÄ— 2000:13) Although the main canons remained the same, passing decades brought some disagreements between the scholars who analysed the rhetoric. The rhetoricians were in the dilemma regarding the approach to a human and communication. These disagreements divided rhetoric into two groups: classical and modern rhetoric. (see Table 1) The followers of classical rhetoric believed that the main purpose of rhetoric was to persuade a listener; it meant to present the ideas, which were correct and kept as facts, until other, more persuasive, thoughts appeared. The information presented needed to be clear, correct and concrete, without any additional elements.

The followers of modern rhetoric disagreed with the classicists. The modernists assumed that a text presented had to inform listeners or readers rather than to persuade them. The communication with the audience was the requirement; the information presented needed to imply some feelings to the audience. Modernists believed that great influence of any speech resided not only in its structure or the specific information, but also in the manner of its presentation. It might be said that the modernists had found a more delicate way to control the attention of a listener or larger audience.

Table 1. The differences in classical and modern rhetoric

Classical rhetoric

Modern rhetoric

  • Most important feature in human was mind
  • The relationship (between speaker and listener) had to be antagonistic
  • Communication was of one-way
  • The purpose was to persuade
  • Most important feature in human was feelings
  • The relationship (between speaker and listener) had to be connection
  • Communication wasmutual
  • The purpose was to inform

Though, the approach of human and communication in the rhetoric confronted disagreements between the scientists, the function of punctuation was clearly defined:”the chief reason for punctuating: to clarify the intent structure of language that would-or simply might-otherwise be confusing or misleading.” (Lauchman R. Punctuation at Work 2002:24) In rhetoric, however, punctuation was used for a wider purpose. In order to present stylistically correct and “living” sentences or text, the punctuation concentrated on the speech patterns such as pitch, tone or intonation. Each mark had to fulfil a specific function that would help the reader or speaker to produce the texts more naturally, i.e. to inbreathe the exact or, at least, similar sound of a tones or pitch used in the oral communication. Moreover, the punctuation marks provided the meaning of the finished thought or showed the need of additional information as well as indicated the type or the functions of the sentences. For instance, the full stop showed the end of a sentence, which had the falling tone. The thought was finished, and had no additional meaning. The question mark, on the contrary, introduced the reader to the rising tone and intonation, and showed the need of additional information form the different speaker. Though, each punctuation mark was important in the reading and understanding any written text, comma, dash and hyphen were widely used in rhetorical punctuation.

1.1.1. Comma and intonation

Communication was inseparable part of human life. It helped to understand others, read their actions, or simply to exchange the information with each other. Writing as well as speaking had the same purpose: to present any information to a reader. However, the complication arose: the most of the aspects of a language used in speaking were not “as well represented in writing: the rises and falls in pitch, the accents, the pauses, the rhythm, the variations in voice quality— all of them features of sound that contributed significantly to speaking but that writing showed haphazardly if at all.”(Chafe W. 1989:1) Thus, the main purpose of the usage of punctuation was to present the visual equivalent to the spoken language in order to show the correct tone or intonation used in the sentence. The missed or misplaced punctuation mark often led to the misinterpretation of the meaning. The equal misinterpretation of a meaning depended on the rhythm, i.e. the stress marks and the length of syllables.

Intonation itself strongly effected the communication; the correct function of information depended on the manner of its utterance. The linguists noticed that people “more violently react to <…> intonational meanings than to <…> lexical ones.” (Hewings M. Tone Choice in the English Intonation of Non-Native Speakers 1995: 251) It might be stated that the information presented to the audience usually was under the influence of intonation. Pitch, rising or falling tones began to play the significant role in the quality of any spoken text. A speaker needed to pay attention not only on spoken text, but also to control his voice level and the length of pauses between the words. The scientists of phonetics noticed that the variations in a spoken activity were influenced by several external factors: environment, the rank of people spoken to and the audience to which information was presented. Through the careful analysis of speech activities, the scientists noticed the three styles of pronunciation: formal, careful colloquial, and rapid familiar. Formal style of pronunciation was used to “reading, reciting, speaking before larger audience, at ceremonies, or delivering an academic lecture.” (Hoppe R. 2004: 20) The careful colloquial style had medium tempo and used the assimilations. This style was used in “every-day conversations, when talking to the official persons or strangers.”( Hoppe R. 2004: 20) The rapid familiar style was expressed in “rapid conversations: speaking with friends, in the family, or in the pub.” (Hoppe R. 2004: 20) This style used fast speed, the assimilations and reductions.

The speech spoken in rapid tempo lessened the length of a pause in a sentence; this led listeners not only to the misunderstanding of the whole information, but also to the annoyance towards the speaker because the information spoken in rapid manner was hard to follow. The slow speaking, on the contrary, extended the length of pauses and they lost main function. A speech or presented text became monotonic and hard to follow, as well as influenced the variation of tone; the long pauses changed the structure of sentence. Therefore, in order to control the length and structure of the sentences, punctuation was used.

It might be stated that comma was the most widely used punctuation mark in rhetoric. The main function of this mark was to present the pauses between the words and to indicate a type of tone or intonation used in a sentence. The changes of intonation depended on the place of comma used in a sentence. In other words, comma separated the words from them to running to other parts of a sentence influencing their changes of intonation. To present the deeper analysis of the tone and intonational variations, the sentences from Galsworthy J. work The Forsyte Saga and its translation into Lithuanian by Irena BalčiunienÄ— were chosen. The visual presentation of the flow and the alteration of the tone and intonation of sentences were analysed using the special marking‌. (see Table 2)

Table 2. The symbols used for the transcription of the pronunciation

The symbol

The purpose of usage.

‌ â•‘

long pause

│

short pause

\

low falling melody (bellow the letter)

/

low rising melody (bellow the letter)

\

high falling melody (above the letter)

high rising melody (above the letter)

Û·

combined waving melody

\ ⁄

divided waving melody

interrupted melody

___

stressed word or part of word

(Adapted from Hoppe R.)

For a deeper graphical analysis of the relationship with punctuation marks and intonation several sentences from the novel were chosen. The sentences were analysed using this order: English sentence and its equivalent to Lithuanian language.

Analysing sentences it might be stated that great influence of intonationl flow depended on the length a sentence; more additional information in a sentence were used, more difficult were to in breath the correct intonation in a sentence. In this analysis a simple, compound or complex sentences were presented.

a) “He \ has been admitted to a vision of the dim roads of social \ progress, (1)│has understood something of patriarchal / life, (2)│ of the swarmings of savage hordes / , (3)│ of the / rise and \ fall of nations. “ (Galsworthy J. The Forsyte Saga1922: 4)

a1) “/ Šiam stebÄ—tojui (│) atsiverdavo migloti visuomenÄ—s vystymosi \ keliai, (1) │ jis pradÄ—davo suvokti šÃ„¯ bei tÄ… apie patriarchalinÄ™ / buitį, (2) │ besipuikuojančias pirmykštes ordas /, (3)│apie tautų / iškilimÄ… bei \ žlugimÄ….”( Golsvortis Dž. ForsaitųSaga1992: 11)

The a) sentence could be divided to three parts according to the position of a comma. The first part of the sentence ended before the (1)│ (the short pause). In this part, the low falling tone dominated: the pitch was equally falling until the comma. Though, in rhetoric comma usually indicated the rising tone, there were cases, when comma was used to express the pitch of partially finished thought. In the first part, the predicate has been admitted and object roads were stressed. The main function of stress was to accent a specific part of the word that was used for a statement. The second part of a sentence had the low rising tone; the sentence was not finished and the rising tone indicated the additional information. Therefore, the after the (2) │ the tone was rising. The third part of a sentence, after (3) short pause, used waving melody; the rise used rising tone while the fall was expressed with the falling tone. The falling tone was used to indicate the finished thought. The point also indicated that there was not presented additional information in the sentence.

The a1) sentence, on the contrary, started with the stressed object šiam. It showed that the intonation had low raising melody: the pitch was equally rising until the word stebÄ—tojui. There might be used a pause, or might be avoided: it was not indicated by the usage of punctuation mark. If the pause after the word stebÄ—tojui were produced, it would show that some kind of person was specified: the meaning of a sentence concentrated on that particular subject. On the contrary, the meaning of this sentence would remain unchanged because the second part of a sentence (after (1) │) the subject jis appeared and indicated that same specified person and the intonation would fall. After the first part of a sentence, one again, the subject jis were stressed and the second part of a sentence had gradually rising (low) melody. At the end of the second part of the sentence, the object buitį was produced with the rising tone. It indicated that the thought was not finished: the following marking introduced the listener with the enumeration of other objects presented in the sentence. In the following part, the second adjective pirmykštes could be stressed, if reader wanted to emphasize the condition of these hordes. If both adjectives were left unstressed, the meaning would only concentrate on the hordes. After (3) short pause, the waving melody was used. It started with the low rising tone and ended with the low falling tone, followed by point placed at the end of a sentence.

Other example used for the analysis of intonation variation was taken a complex sentence.

b) After one look at the old / face, (1) │the / doctor, (2)│ hurriedly sent for, (3)│ announced \ (4)│ that / Miss Forsyte had passed away in her \ sleep. (Galsworthy J. The Forsyte Saga1922: 88)

b1) Skubiai iškviestas /gydytojas, (1) │ /vos pažvelgÄ™s į sena jos\ veidÄ…, (2)│ \ pareiškÄ—, (3) ‌ â•‘ / kad mis Forsait mirÄ— \ miegodama. (Golsvortis Dž. Forsaitų Saga1992: 80)

The sentence b) also presented a variation of the intonation. The beginning of the sentence had the low rising melody. There (1), according to the rule after the comma the rising tone was used. Following by another rule (the comma indicated a short pause); the subject doctor was pronounced with the low rising tone and interrupted by the (2) │. The part of sentence hurriedly sent for stood for the adverbial modifier of a manner. It provided additional information on the subject, but disrupted the low rising melody because, according to the rule, adverbial modifiers needed to be separated with a punctuation mark. The two commas (2) and (3) separated adverbial modifier by the short pauses. It led to the rapid and monotonic intonation, which was broken by the (3)│. If adverbial modifier of manner was not used in this sentence, the intonation of the part the doctor announced would be low raising; though, there was not a mark presented after the predicate announced, yet the short pause was produced (4)│. This pause, analysing from grammatical point of view, indicated the relative clause of a complex sentence, having its own subject and predicate, and could stand alone as a separate sentence without the risk of loosing the meaning of a thought. However, in this sentence, the relative clause was connected to the other parts of the sentence, in order to use the divided waving melody: i.e. raising tone (at the beginning of the relative clause) and falling tone (at the end of a relative clause).

The Lithuanian translation, on the contrary, presented the low raising melody in the beginning of a sentence as a rule, before the (1) │. The following part of the sentence differed from the English, by the tone: in Lithuanian translation the divided waving melody was used. The part vos pažvelgÄ™s į sena jos veidÄ… at the end was produced rapidly by the falling melody. However, it was possible to use the low rising tone because the (2)│was expressed by the comma. The predicate pareiškÄ— in this case was pronounced by the low falling melody. Thought, (3)│was marked by a comma, and the rising tone might be used, in this sentence, the function of a predicate was to indicate the statement, thus the longer pause was uttered; though according to the rule in rhetorical punctuation, the long pause was used to indicate colon or semicolon marks. The additional information was added by the relative clause, which had the divided waving melody, started from low raising tone, and ended with the low falling melody.

Another example, however, presented the sentence of exclamatory type.

c) If /one, (1)│ then why not /all! (Galsworthy J. The Forsyte Saga1922: 88)

c1) Jei lemta / vietam, (1)│ /vadinasi\, (2)│ ir / visiems ! (Golsvortis Dž. Forsaitų Saga1992: 81)

The sentence c) was pronounced using low raising tone and its type was indicated by the mark at the end mark “!”. This mark indicated that the sentence was exclamatory, and the end would be expressed by the high raising melody. The beginning of a sentence was pronounced using low raising tone. This tone presented the short pause and informed that the thought is not finished. After (1)│, the tone remained raised till the very end of a sentence. This kind of intonation was used to express the despair or irony.

The c1) sentence, on the contrary, had used mixed intonation. The beginning of c1) sentence started with the low raising tone, which was followed by the short pause (1)│. The short pause appeared because the parenthesis was used in the translation and was separated by the commas. It interrupted the raising intonation, which dominated in the original sentence; thus the parenthesis vadinasi was expressed by the divided waving tone. This tone presented the parenthesis as the statement or conclusion of the thought. The end of the sentence was expressed by the raising tone, because of the exclamatory mark; however, the usage of parenthesis did not convey the same length of intonation, which was used at the sentence c).

1.1.2. Dash and hyphen functions in rhetoric

The other mark of punctuation, analysed in the rhetoric, was dash. Although, this mark was not as old as the comma, and barely used at the beginning of the nineteenth century-all the intonational functions were conceded to the semicolon - dash had the same purpose as the comma. Its main task was to indicate the variation of the tones and to present pauses, which length - compared with the comma- was doubled. In other words, the dash indicated pauses between the marked parts of a sentence and broke the intonational flow pronounced by the speaker. In writing, there are two types of dash: em dash and en dash; their grammatical functions were analysed at the following chapter of the research paper. Their functions were the same, yet the graphical presentation depended on the language: British English used a short mark (--), while American English preferred the long one (―). Stylistically, the dash was used as a” pair <…> [that] separated a strong interruption from the rest of the sentence.”(Penguin Group 1997:69)

Analysing the dash from the rhetorical perspective, the two sentences were chosen. Each of them had different position of the dash, and was analysed using the same order as analysing comma: i.e. the original sentence and its translation to Lithuanian; using the same transcription from the Table 2.

a)A / poor thing (1) â•‘ -a / wretched ‌‌ (│) poor / thing! (Galsworthy J. The Forsyte Saga1922: 29)

a1)/ VargšelÄ—, (1)│ net graudu / žiÅ«rÄ—ti! (Golsvortis Dž. Forsaitų Saga1992: 33)

The sentence a) had the same high raising melody, used until the end of a sentence. The beginning of the first part started with the high raising tone. The dash (1)â•‘ indicated longer pause, which was followed by the same high raising melody. The end of a sentence also had raising tone because the exclamatory mark was used. In the a) sentence the usage of dash was used for stylistic purpose; the stressed words carried equal importance. The second part of the sentence also carried equal rising intonation. As a rule, if a reader wanted to show more emotional attitude towards the subject, he might to stress each word: then the additional pause would appear. The general meaning of a sentence remained unchanged; the sentence might express either the sympathy and concern, or the irony.

The translated sentence a1), on the contrary, used the comma, rather than dash. It was the rule that the dash in Lithuanian were used only to mark the additional information, or to present to function of an omitted verb. In Lithuanian, the direct address was always separated by the comma. The a) sentence, on the contrary, had more liberal usage of the dash mark, then its translation a1). The intonation of the a1) sentence also was high rising. The comma produced a short pause, which was flowed by the stressed word graudu and low raising tone.

The other example presented the usage of pair dash.

b) Bosinney looked /clever, (1)│ but he had / also- (2) │↑ and -it was one of his great attractions / (3)│-an \ air (│)as if he / did not quite know (│)on which /side his \ bread were \ buttered. (Galsworthy J. The Forsyte Saga1922:51)

b1) / Bosinis (│) iš / pažiÅ«ros / nekvailas, (1)│ / tačiau (2) ↑ -dÄ—l to labiausiai ir mada jį nusisamdyti (3)│ - / atrodo, (4)│/ apsukrumo neturi nÄ— už \ centÄ…. (Golsvortis Dž. Forsaitų Saga1992: 51)

The sentence b)presented the mixed variation of the tone melodies. In order to avoid the misunderstanding, the sentence was divided into three parts. The beginning of the b) sentence was presented by the low raising tone, which was followed by the short pause (1) │. The conjunction but indicated the start of the low raising tone and a stressed predicated. The predicated indicated the structural importance in a sentence and was pronounced using the low raising tone. The second part of the b) sentence started with a pause (2) │. The intonation, however, was presented by the usage of interrupted melody (↑). The whole part was presented in the low raising tone, this part was read rapidly. The optional usage of the conjunction and showed the emotional colouring on the emphasis. The (3)│ was followed by the low falling tone, as if to present the statement or the importance of the meaning of a sentence. There appeared, of course, two additional pauses; their purpose was to introduce a reader with the additional information. The first pause was followed by the low raising tone. Before the second additional pause, the intonation remained raised. The stressed word which provided additional information about character presented in a sentence. The last part of the b) was pronounced by the usage of divided waving intonation; this indicated the statement, or the end of a thought.

Analysing the b1) sentence, the first part of the sentence used the low raising tone; the same tone remained till the (1)│. The additional pause, in this case, could be used in two different ways. Firstly, it might appear after the proper noun Bosinis, indicating that this particular person was important. Secondly, the additional pause, placed at the end of parenthesis iš pažiÅ«ros, stressed the importance of the quality of the subject character, rather than concentrating on the subject. The second part, after the conjunction tačiau, presented the interrupted melody (↑). i.e. the sudden break of an intonation; the additional information was also produced rapidly without any unnecessary interruptions of the pauses. Another parenthesis atrodo also was presented by the usage of low raising tone; there the pause (4)│was followed by the divided waving tone, which led to the low falling tone. The point at the end of the b1) sentence indicated the statement or conclusion of the thought.

Analysing hyphen (-), it might be stated that the rhetorical function of this mark was” to connect the syllables of words broken at the ends of lines.” (McCaskill M. 1998:60) Hyphen, as well as dash, was barely used in traditional rhetoric; his functions were of grammatical usage.

c)In Swithin's / orange and / light-blue /dining-room, (1)│ /facing the Park, (2)│ the / round table was laid for \ twelve. (Galsworthy J. The Forsyte Saga1922:34)

c1) Apvalus stalas (│)/ (2) oranžiniame ir šviesiai mÄ—lyname Svidino valgomajame (│) /langais į Haid ParkÄ… (1) │ buvo padengtas dvylikai \ asmenų. (Golsvortis Dž. Forsaitų Saga1992: 37)

The sentence c) presented the divided waving intonation. The adjectives orange and light-blue had used the low raising tone. The hyphen, between the words light and blue, indicated the special colour, showed for the decoration of a room. It presented this word combination with the equal intonational importance. The pauses (1) │and (2) │ separated the attribute of low falling tone, which specified the location of room. The following intonation used divided waving tone: the stressed adjective round and noun table presented with the low raising tones, which at the end of the sentence c) fell, and conclude the thought.

The c1) sentence, on the contrary, had not used the punctuation marks, therefore, it was quite difficult to indicate the correct, or at least, similar intonation. The beginning of a sentence might have some intonational variations. If the subject apvalus stalas was followed by the additional pause, the whole sentence would have the divided waving melody; the second part (2) would be identified as the adverbial modifier of the place. The other option of the intonational division was to put the additional pauses between the attribute langais į Haid Parką; this way the attribute would be seen as parenthesis, which provided additional information. It is might be noticed that the intonation, if the marking was not provided, often depended on the choice of a reader. To conclude, it might be noted, though hyphen grammatically had the specifically used functions, in rhetoric, this punctuation mark could not influence that variation of the tones.

1.1.3. Partial conclusions

The deeper analysis of the punctuation from the rhetorical point of view showed that the main, and perhaps only one, purpose of the usage of marks was to inbreathe the same or similar variation of intonation in a written text, which was easily presented in a spoken language. Being the oldest science, used for the persuasion or presentation of information, the rhetoric confronted with many different theories of the language and its presentation. These theories led the rhetoric to be divided into two branches: traditional and modern. Both of these branches had their followers that tried to analyse the oral purpose of the language, communication and the prepared speaking i.e. speeches. Before the rise of the phonetics and syntax, rhetoric was the science that was used fully covered the analysis of the whole language.

The birth of punctuation marks made easer for the rhetoricians to express the ideas and inbreathe the “life” to the sentences. The marks not only separated the sentences or their parts from running into each other; they also were the guiding lines used for the indication of the tones, pitch and the variation of intonation. From the comparative analysis of the rhetorical usage of comma and dash in English and Lithuanian sentences, it might be stated that the intonation often was dictated by the position of comma and the mark used at the end of a sentence. If Lithuanian sentence had parenthesis in the middle, it often would be separated by the pauses that presented the divided waving melody, which ended by the falling tone. The English equivalent of the same sentence, which had no parenthesis, had the same tone used in the whole sentence. This tone was not subdivided into the variations of different melodies, and had stronger intonational meaning of a sentence than the first one. The dash and hyphen as the punctuation marks appeared a bit later than comma, therefore, its rhetorical usage was not clearly identified. It was noticed that dash had the same rhetorical function as the comma: to indicate length of pauses and pitch of a tones. This mark also was used to present the additional information such as the opinion or comments of the author, or to indicate figure of speech, that might present the attitude of a character. The dash had more grammatical functions, rather that rhetorical. Because of its indifference of rhetorical functions, the dash was realty used in English language. Lithuanian, on the contrary, used the dash for both, rhetorical and grammatical purposes, though their function differed. The hyphen, however, had no specific influence on the intonation, often it functioned as the indicator of a specific meaning of word combinations. In addition to the analysis of intonation, it was noticed that the most influence in the variation of intonation was made by the pitch.

To conclude, it might be stated that punctuation marks, incorrectly used, had the function: to change the whole meaning of a sentence or to lead a reader or speaker to the misinterpretation of a thought. Incorrect visual presentation of the tones often brought the broken intonation: the presented speech or any other text was either monotonic: long pauses, hardly raised intonation and often falling tone in place where it should be raised; or too emotional: the short pauses, raised or waving melody and rapidly spoken sentences, when the rhetorical relationship of parts of a sentence was lost.

1.2. Grammatical tradition of punctuation

Punctuation was inseparable part of people communication. Its usage could be found everywhere: in the dialogs, songs, orally presented information, or in the books, written speeches, and the pages of newspapers and magazines. The grammarians agreed that punctuation was important branch of the syntax for its grammatical characteristics. Thus, it might be stated that the most of the scientist, recently admitted, that punctuation had equal right to be named and analysed as a separated branch of language science.

Nunberg identified the punctuation as category “defined in partially graphic terms: a set of non-alphanumeric characters that are used to provide information about structural relations among elements of a text, including commas, semicolons, colons, periods, parentheses, quotation marks.”(Nunberg G. 1990 :17) Iyer P., however, in his essay, stated that the marks served as “the road signs placed along the highway of our communication -- to control speeds, provide directions and prevent head-on collisions.(Iyer 1988: 1) The punctuation marks divided a sentence into smaller parts or units, showed the beginning or the end of the thought, and specified a particular part of the speech. Mary K. McCaskill stated that the punctuation had four functions: “to separate (a period separates sentences); to group or enclose (parentheses enclose extraneous information), to connect (a hyphen connects a unit modifier), and to impart meaning (a question mark may make an otherwise declarative sentence interrogative). (McCaskill 1998:44) From Wilson's point of view, the syntactical punctuation was “a the art of dividing a literary composition into sentences and parts of sentences by means of points, for the purpose of exhibiting the various combinations, connections, and dependence of words.” (1856:2) It might be stated that the main purpose of the marks was “to help a writer, and not to disturb, to express the meaning of a sentence as well as its emotional function” (LKRS 1992: 129) However, not all the time, punctuation helped the writers to created the sentences, which were perfect in structure, relation with other grammatical parts, and emotional meaning. Though, each mark had its own purpose and the rules, used for that particular part, many writers struggled creating the syntactically correct and emotionally functioning sentence.

Comparing English and Lithuanian punctuations from the grammatical point of view, it might be stated that English punctuation, after uncontrollable usage of semicolon and comma, was focused on the grammatical structure and functions of punctuation. Therefore, English grammar became analogical, clear and quite strict. Its main purpose was to present the syntactical division of a sentence or a text. The Lithuanian grammar, on the contrary, at first was clear and strict punctuation; it focused on the syntactical structure of a sentence. However, recently, the scientist noticed that Lithuanian punctuation became more liberal and concentrated on the intonational function of a marking: to inbreathe the “life” into the sentence; to make it close to the natural language structure and intonation. For this purpose, Lithuanian grammarians presented the two manners of punctuation usage. The main purpose was to separate the required and optional punctuations. The required punctuation depended on “the clear features of grammar and structure, while the usage of optional punctuation was based on the intention of an author, and intonational accents.”(PangonytÄ— A. LIETUVIŲ KALBOS SKYRYBOS NAUJOVÄ–S 2008:1) However, this division might not prevent the raising of the long and clumsy sentences. The optional punctuation rules provided the choice of the punctuation mark: the punctuation mark was used, or it was omitted, or chanced to the other - the decision was left to the writer. It might be noticed that optional rules, though provided the freedom to choose the punctuation mark, these rule did not prevent the falling of the functional importance and purpose of the marks.

1.2.1. Usage of comma in different types of a sentence

Being widely used punctuation mark, comma was “the most ubiquitous, elusive and discretionary of all stops”.(2007:4) According to the purpose, comma was divided into four types: “listing comma, the joining comma, the gapping comma and bracketing comma.” (Penguin Group 1997:14) It was noticed that a type of comma was indicated by its function and position in a sentence. For the visual presentation of the function of comma, parsing was analysed by the division of the types of the sentences.

The comma were analysed by its position in the original sentences and its translation, using the specific marking of each part of the sentence. A subject was marked with ( ). A verb was marked with ( ). To indicate an object this marking was used ( ). An attribute had ( ) for its marking. The final secondary part of the sentence, an adverbial modifier was marked ( ). The comma and its position in a sentence was marked (^).

In grammar, the three types of sentences were found: a) simple, b) compound and c) complex. Analysing the sentences, the grammarians divided them into smaller units as one-member, two-member sentences, extended or unextended. Often, one-member sentence consisted of only one principle part. It did not have a subject and a predicate, thus, they were expressed by the adverbial modifier or the direct object. Two-member sentence, on the contrary, had “a subject and a predicate.”(Bakshi R.N. A Course in English Grammar 2005:1) The extended sentences were indicated by the secondary parts, which appeared in their structure. The unextended sentence had only a subject and a predicate; it had not secondary parts of the sentence.

The simple sentence was a sentence which “contained of one main clause only.” (Verspoor M. & S. K. English Sentence Analysis 2000: 35). It could be long or short, extended or unextended; the main condition: it needed to have one grammatical centre: a subject and a predicate. The punctuation depended on the number of the secondary parts, which had to be separated by a mark.

a) Twisting his long ^, thin legs^, James went on. (Galsworthy J. The Forsyte Saga1922:11)

a1) Sukeitęs ilgas liesas kojas ^, Džeimas postringavo toliau. (Golsvortis Dž. Forsaitų Saga 1992: 33)

Analysing the position of a comma in the sentence a), it was noticed that the comma listed the parts of a sentence i.e. the comma between the adjectives indicated the description of the legs. It was marked that the legs were long and thin. Second comma in a)sentence, as a rule, was used to separate the adverbial modifier of manner from the main clause.

The Lithuanian translation a1), on the contrary, omitted the first comma. The usage of optional punctuation was presented. The translator had two options: either to use comma after the first adjective ilgas, or to omit punctuation mark. If he inserted the mark between these adjectives, the object would be stressed indicating the importance of its characteristic; the kojos was long and thin. In this case, however, the intonation and additional pause (produced between the adjectives) also kept the main function of the adjectives: to present a characteristic of an object or subject. The sentence used only once comma; its function was to indicate the position of adverbial modifier.

b) “Jolyon ^, he will have his own way”. (Galsworthy J. The Forsyte Saga1922: 11)

b1) - Aišku^, Džolionas visada darys savaip. (Golsvortis Dž. Forsaitų Saga 1992: 18)

Analysing b) sentence and the comma position, it might be stated that without additional information about the character presented in this sentence, the comma, as a rule, should separate a direct address. However, the context provided opposite function of a marking. The comma, there, was used to specify the subject of the sentence: to indicate a person. The quotation marks (noticed at the beginning of b) sentence) in English, indicated the direct speech.

The Lithuanian translation b1), on the contrary, used the attribute in the beginning of a sentence. It served as the mood indicator; presented the specific attitude of a speaker. According to the rule in Lithuanian punctuation, the attribute had to be separated by a comma. However, when attribute appeared with the additional conjunction, its punctuation depended on the writer; the optional punctuation rules gave freedom to separate the attribute, or to left it unchanged. It also was noticed that the dash in Lithuanian punctuation was the equivalent of the quotation marks.

The position of comma in the compound sentence depended on the usage of conjunction. Compound sentence was a sentence which “consisted of two or more clauses of equal importance connected by conjunctions expressed or understood.” (Wood T. Grammar and Composition 2007: 7). The compound sentence usually was defined by the coordinate conjunctions as: and, but, nor, or, so, yet, for. They joined two equal clauses of the sentence.

c) There was warmth ^, but little colour ^, in her cheeks; her large ^, dark eyes were soft. (Galsworthy J. The Forsyte Saga1922: 9)

c1) Kad ir neparaudusiuose jos skruostuose buvo justi šiluma; didelÄ—s tamsios akys švelniai švitÄ—jo. (Golsvortis Dž. Forsaitų Saga 1992:16)

The function of the comma in the c) sentence was to separate the clause of equal importance. Though, the second clause had no subject or predicate, it yet could be called as a clause. In this case, the second part of the clause but little colour could have the function of the extended object. If this clause was omitted, the left parts in the first clause would form a simple sentence. In this sentence the second clause appeared in the middle of the sentence, therefore, the comma separated the clause from both sides. The third comma placed between the attributes large and dark showed the listing of the adjectives, used to describe the subject of the third clause.

The c1) sentence, on the contrary, was translated in such manner that, grammatically, the usage of comma was optional. The Lithuanian punctuation presented the marking of the particles as optional choice; the comma could be used, if writer wanted to show the notional and intonational independence.In the third part of the sentence the comma between the attributes didelÄ—s and tamsios was omitted. The punctuation of this clause was optional; the usage of comma would be available, if a writer saw the characteristics of attributes being equal to each other.

The third type of a sentence was called complex. It consisted “of one principal clause and one or more subordinate clauses.” (Wood T. G



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