punctuation

The part of a language's writing system which provides clues to the way a text is organized. Early writing systems made little or no use of punctuation. Punctuation marks were first introduced by Ancient Greek and Roman authors, from around the 2nd-c BC, as an aid to reading a text aloud, and they retain some of that function in modern languages. They are primarily a visual prompt to the lexical and grammatical structure of a text, with two main functions. Some conventions organize the text into grammatical or semantic units, such as paragraphs and words (spaces), sentences and clauses (full-stop, comma, colon, semi-colon); parentheses and the dash can both substitute for commas, while quotation marks identify extracts of speech. Other conventions carry meaning of their own: the question mark identifies a sentence type, the apostrophe marks possession (John's) and contractions (I'm, must've), while the exclamation mark conveys such features of meaning as surprise.

Portions of the summary below have been contributed by Wikipedia.

v • d • e Punctuation
apostrophe ( ', ’ ) brackets ( ), [ ], { }, < > colon ( : ) comma ( , ) dashes ( ‒, –, —, ― ) ellipsis ( …, ... ) exclamation mark ( ! ) full stop/period ( . ) guillemets ( « » ) hyphen ( -, ‐ ) interpunct ( · ) question mark ( ? ) quotation marks ( "', ‘ ’, “ ” ) semicolon ( ; ) slash/solidus ( / )
Interword separation
spaces ( ) ( ) ( )
General typography
ampersand ( & ) asterisk ( * ) at ( @ ) backslash ( \ ) bullet ( • ) caret ( ^ ) currency ( ¤ ) ¢, $, €, £, ¥ dagger ( † ) ( ‡ ) degree ( ° ) inverted exclamation point (¡) inverted question mark (¿) number sign ( # ) percent and related signs ( %, ‰, ‱ ) pilcrow ( ¶ ) prime ( ′ ) section sign ( § ) tilde ( ~ ) umlaut/diaeresis ( ¨ ) underscore/understrike ( _ ) vertical/pipe/broken bar ( \|, ¦ )
Uncommon typography
asterism ( ⁂ ) lozenge ( ◊ ) interrobang ( ‽ ) irony mark ( ؟ ) reference mark ( ※ ) sarcasm mark

Punctuation is the act and the effect of punctuating, i.e., using punctuation marks.

General Punctuation Unicode.org chart (PDF)
U+	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
2000													‌	‍	‎	‏
2010	‐	‑	‒	–	—	―	‖	‗	‘	’	‚	‛	“	”	„	‟
2020	†	‡	•	‣	․	‥	…	‧			‪	‫	‬	‭	‮
2030	‰	‱	′	″	‴	‵	‶	‷	‸	‹	›	※	‼	‽	‾	‿
2040	⁀	⁁	⁂	⁃	⁄	⁅	⁆	⁇	⁈	⁉	⁊	⁋	⁌	⁍	⁎	⁏
2050	⁐	⁑	⁒	⁓	⁔	⁕	⁖	⁗	⁘	⁙	⁚	⁛	⁜	⁝	⁞
2060	⁠	⁡	⁢	⁣	⁤	⁥	⁦	⁧	⁨	⁩	⁪	⁫	⁬	⁭	⁮	⁯

Supplemental Punctuation Unicode.org chart (PDF)
U+	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
E000	⸀	⸁	⸂	⸃	⸄	⸅	⸆	⸇	⸈	⸉	⸊	⸋	⸌	⸍	⸎	⸏
E010	⸐	⸑	⸒	⸓	⸔	⸕	⸖	⸗	⸘	⸙	⸚	⸛	⸜	⸝	⸞	⸟
E020	⸠	⸡	⸢	⸣	⸤	⸥	⸦	⸧	⸨	⸩	⸪	⸫	⸬	⸭	⸮	ⸯ

punctuation

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