The meaning of punctuation

Interlexical realisations of logico-semantic relations in Swedish

Resumé

Sentence-internal punctuation marks are rarely used clause-internally and more often delimit clauses from other clauses and non-clausal supplements. The present study explores how thusly delimited clauses and supplements semantically relate to their frame clause. These supplement structures are treated as clause complexes, regardless of the form of their segments, and analysed using SFG’s logico-semantic relations, with a focus on the quantitative differences between sentences based on the delimiting punctuation mark: colon, dash or parenthesis.
The most common logico-semantic relation marked by these punctuation marks is Elaboration, reflecting that the three punctuation marks are more or less interchangeable in appositions. But there are significant quantitative differences between the marks: Elaboration is more common with parentheses, while dash to a higher degree marks Extension and Enhancement, and colon often marks projection—including Interpersonal projection, which is here presented as a relation type on its own. From a methodological and theoretical point of view, a clear result is also the fact that the relations between clauses and non-clausal supplements are highly receptible to logico-semantic analysis, despite this generally being reserved for the relations between clauses. The study paves the way for a wider application of the system of logico-semantic relations in the future.