The relationship between verbal and graphic signs in everyday metalinguistic consciousness: punctuation end of a sentence

According to N.P Perfilyeva phenomena indicating permanent influence of punctuation on the primary system of communication (i.e. the language) occur in educated people's discourse. The thematic group "punctuation marks" including such lexical units as "comma", "quotation marks", "brackets", etc. is still under-explored. The multiple aspect study of punctuation as the secondary system of communication started only at the end of the 20th century. All punctuation marks are traditionally divided in microgroups according to their place in the sentence: 1) mid-sentence marks, 2) sentence end marks. The subject analyzed in this article is systematic relations between the lexical units "period", "ellipsis", "exclamation mark", "interrogation mark", i.e. naming units designating sentence end marks. The volume of the microgroup "sentence end marks" is significant and makes up 43% of the whole selection (words included into the thematic group "punctuation marks"). Our opinion is that oppositional relations between punctuation marks as well as between elements of the lexical system are possible. They can include synonymy, formal and semantic variation (polysemy), etc. The words included into this thematic group can be used in terminological and non-terminological meanings. Terminological meanings occur in scientific and educational texts. Our research covers lexical units used mainly in journalistic and literary texts from the conversational discourse used in non-terminological meanings. Lexical units designating "sentence end marks" are used in non-terminological meaning with different frequency: period and ellipsis are used more often; exclamation mark and interrogation mark are used less often. The words "period" and "ellipsis" are used regularly a) as independent words, b) as a part of antonymous phraseological units "put a period" - "put an ellipsis". Nuclear semes of nominations "period" and "ellipsis" are contrast: 'completeness' - 'non-completeness'. The nuclear seme of the interrogation mark is 'question', and semes 'uncertainty' and 'doubt' are peripheral. The semes 'brightness' 'righteousness', 'accent' are typical for the exclamation mark. The last two semes are often contextual. Lexical units mentioned in the article and indicating a fully formed notion of a written text, its means of presentation and creative ability of functioning as a stylistic device in the metalinguistic perception of the speaker occur in the discourse of modern language speakers.

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