Правила пунктуации в английском языке.

PUNCTUATION

Apostrophes

We use apostrophes (  ’)  :

·         In contractions to show that letters have been missed out :

He is Russian.       He’s Russian.

We are having dinner.       We’re  having dinner.

·         With nouns to show possession.  If the possessor is singular, we add  ‘s (even if the possessor already ends in  s):

David’s ticket         the passenger’s ticket         Mr Harris’s  ticket

If the possessor is an irregular plural, we add    ‘s

The children’s tickets

If the possessor is a plural already ending in  s , we just add  ‘ :

The passengers’   ticket

Commas

We use commas (   ,) :

·         To separate items in a list (but we don’t use a comma before     and     or) :

He likes snowboarding, skiing, climbing and bungee jumping.

He can’t stand tennis,  golf , swimming or football.

·         To separate clauses in a sentence:

Bungee jumping, which has become popular in recent years, involves a lot of equipment.

·         After adverbs and linkers at the start of a sentence:

Unfortunately, I haven’t had a holiday this year.

The next day , he had an accident.

·         After greetings and goodbyes in a letter:

Dear Carol,

Love from ,

Colons   and semi-colons   :

We use the colon ( : )  :

·         To introduce a list of items :

This school has an excellent reputation for three things: its exam results, its sport facilities and its music department.

·         To introduce an explanation, an example or a quotation :

There’s just one reason why I failed the exam: laziness!

Oscar Wilde once said :”I can resist everything except temptation.”

We use semi-colon ( ; )  :

·         To join two clauses together instead of making them separate sentences. This shows a link between the two clauses, and we often use a linking word after the semi-colon:

Mel goes to a state school;  her sister goes to a private school.

Trevor is English; however, he goes to school in Scotland.