Punctuation Notes

This article authored by a renowned Taiwanese English professional Hsuan Yuanyu is an excerpt quoted from the webpage as punctuation notes for my self-study.

Comma [ , ]

Comma在平行對稱結構中代表省略：
You will take the first cab and I, the second.
Bert always brings his lunch; Susan, hardly ever.

標示出句中元素不正常的調動：
That they would accept the money, none of us seriously doubted.

以括弧性的逗點隔開句中一個插入的片段：
The apples, though freshly picked, were spoiled in shipment.

以括弧性的逗點隔開成對比的元素或同位格：
Jesse, not Frank, was the first to arrive.
Chen Shuibian, our President, is a very lucky man.

以括弧性的逗點隔開一個非限制用法的關係子句或片語：

My gun, which is now over the mantelpiece, hasn't been used for years.
Such a device, known as a scanner, senses the data and enters it into the computer.


Dash [ -- ]

表示句意的突然轉折或中斷（可取代對等連接詞）：
He is—how shall I put it?—an obnoxious fool.
She said, 「I am at a loss to understand—」

引導同位格，尤其用於已經有許多逗點的情況：

The three R's—reading, writing, and arithmetic—are again being stressed.

引導一個作歸納之用的片語或子句：

Educating citizens, improving the human environment, and planning rural society in the 21st century—these are some of the goals.

Semicolon [ ; ]

在較長、較複雜、含有較多逗點的句子中，用於隔開對等子句：

Unconsciously, native English-speakers develop a way of associating certain words such as helium, heliotrope, heliocentric, and heliograph; but a systematic study of the internal structure of those words would show that the common element is helio-, a combining form meaning 「the sun,」 「bright,」 「radiant.」

用於呈現 a, A; b, B; and c, C 之類的系列：
The tour included Miami, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Kingston, Jamaica.