Home Linguistics & Semiotics ‹/›, ‹,› und ‹,› – Variation und Wandel in der Entwicklung der Kommas im 17. und 18. Jh. aus graph(emat)ischer Perspektive
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‹/›, ‹,› und ‹,› – Variation und Wandel in der Entwicklung der Kommas im 17. und 18. Jh. aus graph(emat)ischer Perspektive

  • Ilka Lemke
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Abstract

In the first half of the 18th century the sentence dividing virgule ‹/› was replaced by the comma ‹,› in German prints. Printers first set the Latin comma in Antiqua type to label Latin (or: non native) text elements whereas the virgule was generally used throughout the entire Fraktur script. Given the typographic alternation of punctuation marks, printers gradually started to set the hybrid Fraktur character ‹,›. This paper presents findings from investigations into typographic variation and typographic shift in 17th an 18th century prints from the GerManC corpus. It concludes with a discussion of the status of the commaas a graph(em)ic element in German, arguing that punctuation marks have significant value in the written language both in the writing system and in typography.

Abstract

In the first half of the 18th century the sentence dividing virgule ‹/› was replaced by the comma ‹,› in German prints. Printers first set the Latin comma in Antiqua type to label Latin (or: non native) text elements whereas the virgule was generally used throughout the entire Fraktur script. Given the typographic alternation of punctuation marks, printers gradually started to set the hybrid Fraktur character ‹,›. This paper presents findings from investigations into typographic variation and typographic shift in 17th an 18th century prints from the GerManC corpus. It concludes with a discussion of the status of the commaas a graph(em)ic element in German, arguing that punctuation marks have significant value in the written language both in the writing system and in typography.

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