The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several different languages. It has the same form as an apostrophe or a single closed quotation mark (‘) in many fonts, but certain differences from them on which line is placed on the main text. Some typefaces render it as a small line, slightly curved or straight, but inclined vertical. Other fonts give it the appearance of a miniature filled figure 9 on the baseline.

The comma uses this in many contexts and languages, mainly for individual parts of a sentence, such as clauses and items in lists, mainly when there are three or more items in the list. The word comma comes from the Greek κόμμα (kómma), which originally meant a cut piece, specially in grammar, a short clause.

A comma-shaped mark is used as a diacritical mark in several writing systems and is considered different from the cedilla. In Ancient Greek, rough and smooth breaths (ἁ, ἀ) appear above the letter. The Latvian, Romanian, and Livonian diacritic marks appear under the letter, as in ș.

For the notation ⟨x⟩ and / x / used in this article, see the grapheme and phoneme, respectively.

History

The development of punctuation is much newer than the alphabet.

In the 3rd century BC, Aristophanes of Byzantium invented a system of single points on (théseis) different levels, which separates the verses and indicated the amount of breath needed to complete each fragment of the text when reading aloud. The different lengths were signified by a dot at the bottom, middle, or top of the line. For a short passage at the middle level, a komma was placed in the form of a dot ⟨·⟩. This is the origin of comma concepts, although the name is used for the mark itself instead of the clause it separates.

The mark used today comes from /, a diagonal slash known as virgula suspensiva, used from the 13th to the 17th century to represent a pause. The modern comma was first used by Aldus Manutius.

In addition, the brand uses it to separate words, phrases, and clauses in a sentence to help it be understood: to divide a sentence into easily assimilated bite-sized pieces. There are many other comma functions, such as “asking questions,” “pointing out,” and so on.

In general, the comma indicates that the words immediately before the comma are less closely or extremely grammatically related to those immediately after the comma than they might otherwise be. The comma performs a number of functions when writing in English. In accordance with the principle of similarity of principles, other languages ​​special in Europe, despite the rules of comma use – and their hardness – vary depending on the language.

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