Punctuation marks are one or two part graphical marks used in writing, denoting tonal progress, pauses, sentence type (syntactic use), abbreviations, et cetera.
Marks used in Slovene include full stops (.), question marks (?), exclamation marks (!), commas (,), semicolons (;), colons (:), dashes (–), hyphens (-), ellipses (...), different types of inverted commas and quotation marks ("", '', ‚‘, „“, »«), brackets ((), [], { }) (which are in syntactical use), as well as apostrophes (',’), solidi (/), equal signs (=), and so forth.
Full Stop
Syntactical Use
A full stop (.) is a left-leaning punctuation mark. This means that it 'touches' the preceding word, but is followed by a space.
It is ordinarily used at the end of a neutral declaratory sentence, be it a real sentence with a predicate or a non-sentence. To je bilo včeraj. (This was yesterday.) Včeraj. (Yesterday.)
When a statement is articulated, the pitch is cadent, thus decreased towards the end of such a sentence.
In an indicative compound sentence with the last part an independent clause that does not end in a full stop, the full stop is omitted. Rekli so mi, naj grem, a kam? (They told me to go, but where?) (and not "Rekli so mi, naj grem, a kam?.")
The final punctuation mark of a quoted sentence (with or without inverted commas) within a declaratory sentence is omitted if the quoted sentence is not preceded by a colon. Ko smo hodili po travi, smo opazili prepoved Ne hodi po travi. (When walking on the grass, we noticed the restriction Do not walk on the grass.) Ko smo hodili po travi, smo opazili prepoved: Ne hodi po travi!
A full stop is replaced by a comma in direct speech before the accompanying sentence. "Oh, mar bi bile ostale doma," je zamrmrala Marjeta. ("Oh, they/we might as well have stayed home," muttered Marjeta (Daisy).)
Non-Syntactical Use
Some abbreviations are, as in American English, always followed by a full stop. dr. (doktor; Dr, doctor); npr. (na primer; e.g., for example, exempli gratia); tj. (to je; this is); l. (leto; year); t.i. (tako imenovani; so-called); itn., itd. (in tako naprej, in tako dalje; etc., et cetera, and so on).
However, other abbreviations are, as in American English, never followed by a full stop. ZDA (Združene države Amerike; USA, United States of America) km (kilometer; km, kilometre) Fe (železo; Fe, iron)
Ordinal numerals are followed by a full stop.
Numbers may be separated by leaning full stops in the following cases: for time of the day Ob 22.15 ('dvaindvajset petnajst' or 'dvaindvajsetih in petnajst minut') se film konča. (At 22.15 (10.15 pm) the film ends.) 22.15 can also be written as 2215 to separate thousands from the rest 1.000.000 (en milijon; one million, 1,000,000) (but more usual is 1 000 000) to show multiplication 3 · 9 (tri krat devet; three times nine) note that in this case, the dot is raised to the line centre and is non-leaning
Dates are written with dots separating the day, month and year. Note that the numerical English dates below are British English; American English switches the month and the day. It is important to realise that the full stop is left-leaning; the space is intentional (yet only few are aware of that). 1. 10. 2003 (prvi deseti dva tisoč tri, prvi oktober dva tisoč tri; the first of October, two thousand and three, 1/10/2003) 25. 6. 1991 (petindvajseti šesti (junij) tisoč devetsto enaindevetdeset; the twenty-fifth of June, nineteen ninety-one, 25/6/1991) 30. maj (trideseti maj; the 30th of May)
If a non-syntactical full stop is at the end of a sentence, it is not usual to append another full stop to it; however, doing so is not incorrect. Prodajam časopise, avtobusne žetone, zobne ščetke itd. (I sell newspapers, bus tokens, toothbrushes, etc.) Prodajam časopise, avtobusne žetone, zobne ščetke itd..
Ellipsis
Syntactical Use
An ellipsis (in Slovene, literally 'three dots') (...) is a non-leaning punctuation mark. It expresses omission of words. Nekaj sem govorila ... (I was saying something ...) ... kaj to ni res? (... is this not true?) Heh ... česa vsega ne pove. (Heh ... whatever he/she says.) Ja ... in? (Yes ... so?) Saj bi šel, pa ... (I/He would go, but ...) (an alternative is to write this thus: "Saj bi šel, pa –)
Any other punctuation may or may not be appended; a full stop is usually (but not always) omitted, but other punctuation normally remains: Da … or Da …. (Yes …) O, a tako je bilo …? (Oh, it was so …?)