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Subject-You.

§ 18. How well you look.

Predicate-look.

Copula-involved in Predicate.

Sentences of this kind convey an exclamation of surprise, and have been called Exclamatory.

§ 19. Optative Propositions are, to a certain extent, Imperative, and, to a certain extent, Declaratory. In expres

sions like

May you be happy,

change the place of may and you, the result is an ordinary assertion,

On the other hand,

is a command.

You may be happy.

You be happy

There is no command, however, without

a real or supposed wish on the part of the speaker.

§ 20. Exclamatory Propositions are, to a certain extent, Interrogative, and, to a certain extent, Declaratory. In expressions like

How well you look,

change the place of the essential parts, and the result is an ordinary assertion,

You look well.

Meanwhile, how indicates the degree or extent of your well-looking. But it only indicates it. The degree itself is undefined; and (as such) the possible object of a question. How do you look?

is an actual Interrogation.

PUNCTUATION.

§ 1. Punctuation.- The Latin word punctum means point; and punctuation means the putting of points. In speaking, (especially when the sentence is at all complex,) certain pauses or breaks present themselves-pauses or breaks which are of different degrees of magnitude.

§ 2. Sometimes, for instance, two propositions may come together, each of which is, not only complete in itself, but wholly independent of the other. When this is the case, the pause or break which intervenes is of the most definite and decided kind.

1.

He who fights and runs away
Will live to fight another day.

2.

The man that hath not music in his soul

Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoil.

Here the connection between the two sentences is as slight as well can be.

In

He who fights and runs away
Will live to fight another day,
But he that is in battle slain
Will never live to fight again.

we have a separation; but, at the same time, a connection as well.

Meanwhile the nominative he, though the antecedent to who, is also the subject to will; by the words, who fights, &c.

from which it is separated This gives us a break of

another kind--a temporary break followed by a resumption of the context.

§ 3. This applies to language as it is spoken. Where the speaker expresses himself with propriety, he makes pauses of different kinds-short ones between the subordinate portions of his sentences, longer ones between the sentences themselves.

§ 4. Such pauses are, of course, made in writing as well; and, when this is the case, signs of some kind whereby they may be denoted become necessary. These are not unfrequently called points. They are, however, oftener called stops.

§ 5. The true and proper stops are four in number,—i. e. (1) the Comma, (2) the Semicolon, (3) the Colon, (4) the Period-also called the Full Stop. Of these, the Comma denotes the shortest, the Period the longest, pause.

§ 6. The Comma and Period are, in respect to their forms, the two fundamental stops.

The Period is truly what the name punctum suggests—a point (.).

The Comma is a modification of the Period (,).

The Colon is a Period surmounted by another Period (:). The Semicolon is a Comma surmounted by a Period (;). § 7. In respect to their names:-1. Comma is from xóupa (komma) = a cutting. κόμμα

2. Colon, = κώλον (kolon) = a limb or member Semicolon meaning a half member.

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3. Period, Tepiados (periodos), a circuit, end of a journey, and, in a secondary sense, a conclusion or termination.

§ 8. There is a statement in certain works on elocution that, when the reader or reciter of a sentence comes to a comma, he should pause upon the word that precedes it long enough to count one, at a semicolon long enough to count two, and at a colon long enough to count three, and at a period long enough to count four. It is scarcely necessary to say that this measurement is both artificial and arbitrary, and that no one either reads or recites

according to the rule thus laid down. It is well, however, to remember its existence; inasmuch as it shows the relation that the four stops bear to each other. The Colon is more of a stop than either the Semicolon or the Comma, and the Period more of a stop than the Colon.

9. The Comma, Semicolon, Colon, and Period have been called the true and proper stops; because they differ from each other by the difference of length in the breaks or pauses which they represent.

§ 10. The Note of Interrogation (?) and the Note of Exclamation (!) still require notice. They are sometimes treated as separate stops. They are, however, more properly, varieties of the Period, differing from the ordinary Full Stop in being appropriate to different sorts of propositions.

§ 11. The former follows Direct Questions, the latter Exclamations. Thus―

You are well.

Here the sentence is Declaratory, and the stop a Period. Are you well?

How are you?

Here the sentence is Interrogative, and the stop a Note of Interrogation.

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the sentence is Exclamatory, and the stop a Note of Exclamation.

§ 12. Notes of Exclamation are sometimes called Notes of Admiration. They often indicate surprise. At the same time they are used with considerable latitude, and sometimes follow a Vocative Noun, sometimes an Imperative Verb, sometimes an Optative.

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They are most especially used after Interjections-Ah! Oh! Ha! &c.

§ 13. For a Note of Interrogation to find place, the question must be Direct. Indirect questions like

Tell me how you are

are followed by the ordinary Period.

14. When a clause is thrown into a sentence so casually as to bear being taken away without affecting either the sense or the construction, a parenthesis () may be used instead of a pair of stops. Expand

into

All the men in the village were frightened

All the men in the village (and there was a great many of them) were frightened,

And the parenthesis is appropriate.

It is, however, a sign in the use of which there is a considerable amount of latitude.

§ 15. Quotations are often marked by inverted commas,

§ 16. The dash, denotes that the sentence is incomplete.

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