The relationship between pause and punctuation
0 1
Punctuation in written language plays an important role, and the pause in reading must obey punctuation. In most cases, the position of punctuation marks in written language is consistent with the need to pause in reading. Pauses indicated by punctuation marks can be divided into four levels.
Generally speaking, the pause scores of periods, question marks and exclamation marks are longer; The pause of semicolon is longer than comma; The pause of comma is longer than pause; The pause of a colon is more flexible: its pause is sometimes equivalent to a period, sometimes to a semicolon, and sometimes only to a comma.
For example:
Just as Darwin discovered the development law of the organic world, Marx discovered the development law of human history, which is a simple fact that has been concealed by complex ideology:///People must eat, drink, live and wear first,/and then they can engage in politics, science, art and religion.
//Therefore, the direct production of material means of life, and thus a certain economic stage of a nation or an era, constitutes the foundation, and people's national system, legal views, art and even religious concepts are all developed from this foundation, so they must also be explained from this basis.
Instead of doing the opposite as in the past. (Engels' speech at Marx's tomb)
Where there is punctuation in this passage, you must pause when reading, and pause in different lengths according to the punctuation marks.
02
When there is inconsistency, punctuation marks in written language often coincide with pauses in reading. It can be divided into two situations.
1, pause without punctuation
For example:
What happened to the old woman you kicked away/begged for money from the door of your mansion? (Mark Twain ran for governor)
When reading this sentence aloud, be sure to pause after "old woman" in order to convey the meaning to the audience more clearly. If you read it in one breath and don't stop in the middle, it will be very chaotic and vague.
There are punctuation marks in the sentence, but they don't stop.
Try the following passage:
The table is in the center of the room. It is a long table. She still remembers handing out glasses and chopsticks as usual. Sister Xianglin, you put it, I put it. Four aunts hurriedly said. With a wry smile, she drew back her hand to get the candlestick. "Sister Xianglin, you put it away and I'll get it." Four aunts and hurriedly said. (Lu Xun's blessing)
The underlined places in the sentence can be read without stopping. This kind of treatment can highlight the tension of the fourth aunt-"don't touch"! It reflects the profound exposure and lashing of feudal cannibalism ethics.
A pause of all kinds.
0 1
Adapt to the pause of grammar. This pause can be handled according to punctuation marks, and sometimes it can break through the limitations of punctuation marks. (See the relationship between pause and punctuation).
02
Show pauses in the hierarchy.
The level of the article can be shown by the reader's pause. Generally speaking, it is easy to divide into large levels like sections (paragraphs) in articles, while sections (paragraphs) and even sentences in texts often have smaller and finer levels. It is not easy to divide these levels and show them with pauses in reading.
For example:
1. He has a white headband tied to his head,/a black skirt, a blue jacket and a moonlight vest. //He is about twenty-six-seven,//His face is blue and yellow, but his cheeks are still red. (Lu Xun's blessing)
2. She has a bamboo blue in one hand,/and there is a broken bowl in it,/empty; //leaning on a bamboo pole that is longer than her in one hand,/the lower end is cracked:///She is obviously a beggar. (Lu Xun's blessing)
03
A pause reflecting an echo. The echo relationship in the article is mainly reflected by the pause when reading aloud. The overall echo of the whole article is easy to grasp, but the local echo relationship in the article is often interrupted or blurred because of the reader's neglect, thus affecting the expression of meaning.
It is inevitable to make some mistakes and shortcomings in the construction work. The problem lies in the wrong attitude towards shortcomings. (Wu Han's On Modesty) 2. Is this swallow the pair/pair, two pairs from our hometown? (Haiyan by Zheng Zhenduo)
04
A pause that expresses emphasis. In order to highlight some important words in the sentence, attract the attention of the audience and deepen the impression of the audience, we can pause before or after these words, which is an emphasized pause.
For example:
I can't bear to see that terrible sight; Gossip, especially when it reaches my ears. What else can I say? I understand the reason why the decadent nation is silent. Quiet, quiet! If you don't break out in silence, you die in silence. (Lu Xun's "Recalling Liu Hezhen Jun")
When reading the last sentence aloud, if you pause before "outbreak" and "extinction", you can let the audience fully feel the call of "either outbreak or extinction" and a call for readers to fight.
Another example is:
Some people are alive/he is dead; /Some people are dead/He is still alive.
05
When reading a poem, in order to strengthen the sense of rhythm, we must use pauses to express syllables.
For example:
1. White hair/three thousands of feet, sad/long. I wonder/in the mirror, where/where is the autumn frost? (two or three types)
2. Bamboo outside/peach blossom/three or two branches, Chunjiang/plumbing/duck prophet. Very high/all over the ground/short reed buds, just right/puffer fish/want to go up. (Type 223)
3. Northland/Scenery, Wan Li/Frozen, Wan Li/Snow. Looking inside and outside the Great Wall, there is only redundancy/infinity; The river/ups and downs, lost/surging. Mountain dance/silver snake, original chi/wax elephant, want to compare/try with/god. It must be/sunny, looking/wearing red, special/enchanting. (Mao Zedong's "Qinyuan Spring Snow")
4. I sing for/boys and girls, I/sing/morning, I/sing/hope, I/sing those things that belong to the future, I/sing/grow/strength. (He Qifang, "I Sing for Boys and Girls")
06
Pause distinguishes some ambiguous phrases and sentences in semantic written language, which can be used to reveal their different grammatical structures and express different meanings.
For example:
1.a, right/wrong opinion (verb-object phrase) b, right/wrong opinion (radical phrase)
2.a, notify arrival (supplementary phrase) B, notify/arrive (subject-predicate phrase)
3.a, I don't believe he is a bad guy (he is not a bad guy) B, I don't believe/he is a bad guy (he is a bad guy).
His old friend, notary, thinks that the only adopted daughter who is rich is "married"/his nephew is a director, if Charlie Grandet doesn't come back. (Balzac's Miser)
I saw my son happily walk into the house with the gift my father bought from Beijing.