Common punctuation problems in Chinese

Overview of punctuation marks (sixteen punctuation marks)

Punctuation marks are an indispensable part of written language. Punctuation, as an expression tool, has made great contributions to expressing people's thoughts and feelings in words.

Imagine what would happen if there were no punctuation marks in written language? Then, our Chinese textbook will be a long string, an article or an article. Who can read it at once? Can you read what you want to say even if you read it intermittently? Take a look at the following two examples:

1. There is no food to sell to the Eighth Route Army.

2. Raising pigs is like a mountain, and only when the mouse's head is dead can you create a vinegar altar.

After reading example 1, you may understand its meaning, but after reading example 2, you may not know what the author is saying. Now let's add punctuation to change the pronunciation:

3. There is no food to sell to the Eighth Route Army?

4. Don't sell food to the Eighth Route Army!

5. Don't sell food, give it to the Eighth Route Army!

6. Raise a pig like a mountain, and the mouse's head dies. A good wine jar makes the vinegar jar sour. Many people, few diseases, wealth.

7. Raising a pig is as big as a mountain mouse, and its head is dead. Wine vats are good for vinegar, but the jar is sour. Many people are ill, but few are rich.

Examples 3 to 5 are changes of example 1. Example 3 Add a question mark and ask a question. Example 4 adds an exclamation point, with clear meaning and strong tone. This sentence is a slogan written on the street wall when the Japanese army blocked the liberated areas. After reading it today, we still feel that it reflects the viciousness and hegemony of the Japanese devils. Example 5 put a comma in the middle of the slogan written by the Japanese. Read it again. Haha, it really annoys the Japanese. This comma was added by the anti-Japanese guerrillas at night. Slogans with commas have opposite meanings to those without commas. This little comma is really useful.

Reading Example 6 and Example 7 again, I found that these ten words are the same, the arrangement order has not changed, but the meanings are completely opposite. The original punctuation position has changed, which has changed the meaning of the sentence. There is a story in Example 2: Once upon a time, a miser asked a poor scholar to write a couplet for his shop. The first couplet is "raising pigs is like a mountain", the second couplet is "making a jar makes a jealous jar sour", and the horizontal line is "many people are ill and less wealth". The miser read it in the way of Example 6, and at that time he was elated and extremely happy. The children next door read according to the instructions of the scholar and the way of Example 7, and the miser rolled his eyes with anger.

As can be seen from the above example, there are no punctuation marks, and the written language is just a string, so it is impossible to read their exact meaning; With punctuation marks, the meaning of language is clear; The meaning of language changes with the change or shift of punctuation marks. Punctuation is really a magical little thing!

In spoken English, we can judge the speaker's meaning and mood according to his speed, pause, tone and voice. If spoken language is changed into written language, it is necessary to rely on punctuation to reflect the meaning and emotion of the speaker. For example, the speaker asked, "Is this Xu Ali's classmate?" If there is no question mark on the paper and a period is used, then when others look at this question, it will become "this is Xu Ali." I thought it was the introduction of Xu Ali, which changed the actual tone and semantics of spoken English.

Although spoken English has sounds and tones that can be felt by people's ears, it is not as good as the semantics embodied by punctuation marks. Please read the following story:

An old man likes reading very much and reads until late at night every day. The little grandson often reads books with him in the evening. That night, two grandparents were reading a book, and the little grandson with sensitive ears suddenly heard something in the yard and immediately told his grandfather, "Grandpa, someone is stealing outside." Grandpa is very strict about reading, and he is most afraid of being distracted. Seeing that his grandson's attention was not on the book, he said seriously, "Don't be distracted! -Pass me the old gun. " Someone did steal something outside. With his youth and strength, the thief didn't notice the old and young people in the room. He was not afraid when he heard the child say "someone was stealing outside", but when he heard what grandpa said, he ran away in fear.

Today, we must feel ridiculous when we see this story, because as soon as we see the old gun, we know that it is a book with a framed title. In oral language, the thief didn't recognize the book. He only heard the word "old gun" and thought of a weapon that could kill people. From this story, we can see that punctuation can play a role that oral English can't.

Punctuation plays such a great role. Who invented it? In ancient Chinese books in China, there are no such rich and complete punctuation marks as now. The ancients often used words such as "Zhi", "Hu", "Zhe" and "Ye" to express mood and pause. At present, most of China's ancient books or historical masterpieces we bought from bookstores have been punctuated by modern experts and scholars. The ancients generally did not use punctuation marks, and a few people only used one or two extremely simple ones, such as a point or a circle. Imagine, can such a simple symbol or two express rich and colorful language meanings? Expressions such as dashes and ellipsis are simply impossible to complete.

"Punctuation marks are the result of the New Culture Movement. With the prosperity of vernacular Chinese, it has been widely used in written language. " (Xu Rongjie: "Poetry and Punctuation") The New Culture Movement is a cultural revolution movement initiated by China cultural circles after the May 4th Movement. Before that, the articles written by China people were not as easy to understand as those written by people now, and they were written in classical Chinese without punctuation. After the New Culture Movement, people in China began to write articles in the vernacular, which is the vernacular. In addition to spoken English, punctuation marks are also used.

Punctuation marks were not invented by one or two people, but were gradually established by cultural pioneers who took the lead and Chinese people responded. It is an expression tool with stable form and clear division of labor, which adapts to the needs of Chinese expression by drawing lessons from foreign punctuation marks.

How many kinds of punctuation marks are there? 1On March 22nd, 990, the State Language Commission and the Press and Publication Administration jointly published Usage of Punctuation Symbols, and published sixteen punctuation marks, such as period, question mark, exclamation mark, comma, pause, semicolon, quotation mark, bracket, dash, ellipsis, bullet, hyphen and interval.

What is the function of punctuation? Punctuation marks are used in written language to indicate pause, mood and the nature or function of words.

First of all, it means a pause. For example:

I did it for my cousin.

9. That's why I did it, cousin.

A comma indicates a pause in a sentence, and a period indicates a pause at the end of the sentence. The meaning of a sentence changes with the position of the pause.

Second, show the tone. For example:

10. The teacher is back.

1 1. Is the teacher back?

12. The teacher is back!

13. Stop. Hands up.

These four sentences have different moods: for example, 10 is a declarative mood, telling one thing; Example 1 1 is the tone of the question, so ask a question; Example 12 is an exclamation tone to express the speaker's strong feelings; Example 13 is the tone of the command, conveying an irresistible command.

Third, mark the nature or function of words. For example:

14. I jumped for joy when I heard that it was a "heaven riot".

(Six-year primary school textbook Chinese Volume 11 "My Heart")

15. He flew back to the inn and spent the whole night recording the music he just played-Moonlight Song.

("Primary School Chinese" Volume 12 "Moonlight Song")

16. It took him 27 years to finally compile a new drug book, the famous Compendium of Materia Medica.

("Primary School Chinese" Volume 6 Li Shizhen)

17. One afternoon, Mr. Zhang's instructor happily said to us, "Tell everyone a good news, we have a book!"

(Book 7 of Primary Chinese is a precious textbook)

As we all know, the title in case 14 indicates the name of a movie, the title in case 15 indicates the name of a piece of music, the title in case 16 indicates a title, and the quotation marks in case 17 indicate what the instructor said.

In addition to the above three basic uses, individual punctuation marks are also used for "rhetoric" and to express the formal beauty of poetry. (You can't understand them for the time being in primary school)

Punctuation is a combination of labels and points. Labels are mainly used to indicate the nature or function of words. They are quotation marks, brackets, book titles, dashes, ellipsis, bullets, spaces, hyphens and proper names. Periods are mainly used to punctuate sentences, indicating pause and tone. There are seven kinds of periods: question mark, exclamation mark, comma, pause symbol, semicolon and colon.

Commonly used punctuation marks are divided into five groups according to different purposes:

The first group shows the pause at the end of the sentence and the mood of the sentence. There was a time. ], question mark [? ], exclamation point [! 〕。

The second group represents the pause in the sentence. There are pauses, commas and semicolons. 〕。

The third group, indicating tips and references. There is a colon [:] and quotation marks [""].

The fourth group represents insertion, turning, annotation and deletion. There are dashes and ellipsis.

The fifth group represents special words. There is a title [""].