Spanish punctuation and word division rules

Paisaje de España

Un río seco sobre el que cae un sol de plomo, inclemente. Por el fondo de su lecho de piedras pasan, en fila india, unos pollinos montados a la amazona por unas mujeres vestidas todas de oscuro, teniendo en la mano cada una un paraguas negro.

El calor es abrumador. La luz, de una intensidad que daña, el paisaje está hecho de un montón alucinante y desordenado de guijarros y de rocas amarillentas, sin otra mancha de color que estos insólitos champiñones negros que desfilan con una lentitud majestuosa. Tal es la imagen que, de un golpe, se me impone, cuando evoco a España, en donde he vivido este verano dos semanas exaltantes, maravillosas, en un mundo de contrastes duros, en cuyo umbral se termina Europa...

Vocablos

Notes

The meaning of words and expressions

tal such; such (a thing); so

The word tal in combination with a noun acts as an adjective and is translated as such, for example:

Tal can also function as a pronoun, for example:

Furthermore, tal can be used as an adverb, translated into English as so, for example:

Grammar

1. Punctuation

In Spanish, punctuation marks perform two functions:

• a logical function, i.e., by separating certain parts of a sentence, they provide greater clarity in understanding the meaning of the sentence.
• a phonetic function, providing a specific intonation when pronouncing individual parts or words of the sentence.

In Spanish, the following punctuation marks are used:

coma [,] — comma
punto y coma [;] — semicolon
punto final [.] — full stop / period
dos puntos [:] — colon
puntos suspensivos [...] — ellipsis
signo de interrogación (de apertura) [¿] — opening question mark (at the beginning of a sentence)
signo de interrogación (de cierre) [?] — closing question mark (at the end of a sentence)
signo de exclamación (de apertura) [¡] — opening exclamation mark (at the beginning of a sentence)
signo de exclamación (de cierre) [!] — closing exclamation mark (at the end of a sentence)
paréntesis [()] — parentheses / brackets
diéresis o crema [¨] — diaeresis (separating character)
comillas [« »] — quotation marks
guion [-] — hyphen
raya [—] — dash
dos rayas [ = ] — double dash / equals sign

Usage of the comma

coma [,]

The most typical cases of using the comma in Spanish:

a) A comma is used to set off forms of address located at the beginning or in the middle of a sentence, for example:

b) A comma is not used if homogeneous members of a sentence are joined by the conjunctions: y (and), ni (nor), o (or), for example:

If independent clauses in a compound sentence connected by the above conjunctions are not closely related in meaning, then a comma is placed before the conjunctions y, o, ni, for example:

c) A comma separates the inverted part of a sentence (such as a gerund phrase), for example:

If the sentence where the inversion occurs is not very extended, the comma is not used, for example:

Usage of the semicolon

Punto y coma [;]

The semicolon is used:

a) If clauses forming a compound sentence are too long and already contain commas within them.

b) In compound sentences where each clause is highly extended and introduced by the conjunctions: mas, pero (but), aunque (although).

In these sentences, the semicolon is usually placed before the aforementioned conjunctions, for example:

c) In compound sentences connected by a conjunction, if the content of the second sentence is not closely related in meaning to the first one. The semicolon is usually placed before the conjunction, for example:

The rules for using the colon, full stop, hyphen, dash, and other punctuation marks generally coincide with the corresponding rules in English. A certain difference appears when using the colon in letters after the greeting, for example:

Note: unlike in English, where a comma is often placed after the opening greeting in a letter, in Spanish, a colon is used. Moreover, the text of the letter itself always begins on a new line and strictly with a capital letter.

2. Word Division Rules

In Spanish, just as in English, you can only carry over entire syllables to the next line, for example:

con-ca-vi-dad; sub-si-guien-te

In addition to the above, it is necessary to remember the following:

• You cannot separate letters that are part of diphthongs and triphthongs, as they form a single phonetic syllable, for example:
  gra-cio-so; tiem-po; no-ti-ciáis
• Words with prefixes (for example, des-) can be carried over according to their morphological structure, separating the prefix completely, even if the root begins with a vowel:
  des-o-var; des-am-pa-ro
• In the pronouns nosotros, esotros, vosotros, it is forbidden to separate the historical morphemes nos-, vos-, es-. These words are divided strictly by syllables: no-so-tros; vo-so-tros; e-so-tros.
• In compound words with a Spanish or Latin prefix followed by the consonant s, the consonant s remains with the prefix when carried over, for example:

  constante	is divided as	— cons-tan-te
  perspicacia	„	— pers-pi-ca-cia
  inspirar	„	— ins-pi-rar

• The double letters ch, ll, as well as rr are never divided when carried over, for example:

  coche	is divided as	co-che
  calle	„	ca-lle
  carreta	„	ca-rre-ta
  perro	„	pe-rro