Lesson 2 (Quite belated, I know...)
This lesson, which is considerably shorter (and less tedious - I hope) than the first lesson will cover the unique system of punctuation. From now on, I will try to make shorter lessons in closer intervals - the last one bored me out of my mind...
Punctuation:
Completely new marks of punctuation:
-Question mark (placed between the last and the penultimate letters of the question word) Note: It is possible in an Armenian sentence to have both a question mark AND a period! This is indicated by placing the question mark in between the designated letters and placing the period at the end of the question. - The purpose of this is to indicate a) that the clause or clauses are a question and b) to further clarify where the end of the question lies.
՞
-No true equivalent - Short stop, placed in the same spot as a question mark would be; indicates a short pause that is longer than that of a comma, but shorter than that of a semicolon.
՝
-No real equivalent - Interjection Sign, placed between the penultimate and last letter of the interjection
՛
-Abbreviation mark, placed after the last letter of an abbreviated word.
՟
False friends:
-The Armenian period (identical-looking to the colon, however not having the same purpose)
։
-Exclamation point, beware - it looks identical to the traditional ellipsis
...
-Semi-colon, a false friend of the period
.
Slightly different:
- used in dialogues and prose when introducing a new character or remark, rarely used as parenthesis also
-
- quotation marks, identical to guillements if you speak French, otherwise it is a slightly different character
« »
Familiar punctuation marks:
-The comma corresponds to the comma used in the Roman alphabet.
,
-hyphen, identical to the traditional Western hyphen
-
-parenthesis, identical
( )
Although I have proofread this, don't hesitate to ask any questions or point out any errors on my part. There are no excercises for this lesson.
Also, can someone explain to me how to make the writing bigger please, I don't want anyone to go blind.