Low amount of shared syntax in modern english

[Idealect]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. Technically this is close to the topic of grammar, but this seems to be the forum for discussing the theory of writing.



I think standard English has a lack of syntactical markers. Not compared to other languages, but in an absolute sense, many things which could be marked syntactically have no common convention. One could invent one's own, and use those, but then one is moving away from the shared language we use to communicate, and store what we wish to say or describe in a way others understand.

For example, if a comma could be preceded by a space, like so:

"stuff before comma , stuff after comma"

And served the same function as a normal comma, but with a longer pause, then one would have at least one additional tool to control the way their text is read, and nothing would be the lost by the possibility.

Similarly, in complicated sentences* it can be ambiguous which words refer forward and backward to one another, somewhat like this one, thanks to this last clause I added.

Sentences can be written to be less ambiguous, but they can also be very complex, the same word with different meanings can crop up multiple times, and one's writing can have other constraints and purposes it wishes to serve.

One can write less ambiguously, but one also could solve the problem with referring syntax. So wouldn't it be straightforwardly better, if there was such a conventional referring practice? After all if no one wants to use it, it can always not be used.

(Perhaps some form of super or subscript symbol, or over or underlining would be least obtrusive.)

Anyway, as things stand many things which could be explicitly or semi explicitly marked out through syntax, have to be conjured forth: evoked and coalesced, out of the subtle structure of one's writing. There are many times when one is writing that one might think "wouldn't this be easier if I could just...", and I suppose my argument is that often, yes, it would. (and I can't see what would be lost)

My first question would be, does that sound roughly correct: literally true, to those reading?

And are there benefits, and if so what to a simple system of commas and full stops and question marks, and a few other things less often used?

Is English circa 2016, then, a conventional form of sorts, like, e.g. a sonnet, with particular restrictions that make for particular styles? Not exactly a technical game, but hardly a medium which makes things easy for its user.


There's an analogy here to sheet music one way or another.

Please discuss anything I've said or anything related! (including of course, other replies)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Eats, shoots and leaves.
There are huge ambiguities at times only resolved by overall context. There was a post elsewhere here of a sentence that could validly be parsed about six ways. Such things are usually obvious from context.
The lack of more rigid syntax and the ambiguity are an advantage for a natural living language. You only want rigid syntax, grammar and zero ambiguity in a computer language. There are good mathematical reasons why a decent computer programming language can't be like a natural language. There are good explanations why Esperanto and other "conlangs" are poor for real people and real social interaction, song, poetry and decent literature. Esperanto has also other problems that other conlangs don't have (too biased to Polish and Italian is a basic issue).

 

[Ursa major]

I think people can make clear statements -- i.e. the reader is in no doubt about what the writer meant -- using the syntax (and syntactical markers) we already have available to us.

One might even say that if some writers fail** to make clear statements using the syntax we have now, the introduction of more precise syntax (with or without additional syntactical markers) may make the problem worse: the lack of clarity might be replaced with writing about which there seems to be no doubt at all about the intended meaning (from the perspective of the reader), but because, for instance, the writer doesn't use the rules properly, the intended meaning is not supplied in the text.


** - Not the same as making deliberately unclear statements.

 

[The Judge]

Well, I've read your post now three times, and I'm still not sure I'm following what you say, much less that I understand what you mean.

Anyhow, for what it's worth, here are some random thoughts.

My languages are limited to French A-level and a handful of words and/or tourist phrases in a few European tongues, so I can't comment on whether other languages have better syntactical markers than do we, though I can't recall coming on any other forms of punctuation in those other languages, apart from the Spanish ¿. If no other languages have developed them, might it be because they are, in fact, not actually needed?

We've previously (if jokily) talked here on Chrons of the creation of hemi-demi-semi-commas and the like to show different lengths of pause (The Toolbox), and certainly I would sign up to them. But since most people eschew the colon nowadays, let alone the useful semi-colon, I really can't see them catching on. Apart from that, though, what else do you think is missing?


And broadening discussion into syntax generally, we do, of course, have rules which native English speakers imbibe without knowing there actually are rules, such as the correct order of adjectives eg Kipling's great, grey-green, greasy Limpopo River (The Royal Order of Adjectives | The Editor's Blog if anyone is interested in knowing the rules themselves) and such as the fact "man bites dog" means something very different from "dog bites man". But I actually like the fact that English can be flexible at times, that one sentence can be written several different ways and still mean the same, albeit giving different shades of emphasis to different parts of it. I like how as a writer I can influence the reader by choosing where and when to place the verb or noun. And for myself, I've never thought "wouldn't this be easier if I could just..." not when it comes to choosing punctuation. I frequently get annoyed that I can't convey something in prose that is both clear and elegant, but no amount of syntactical markers is likely to help there.

 

[tinkerdan]

When I read the OP I sensed the use of syntax markers relating only to punctuation; though there are many more markers than just those. Did I sense this incorrectly? Or are you suggesting that punctuation are the only syntax markers?

 

[chrispenycate]

Without a very solid argument you are not going to convince manufacturers or touch-typists to adapt to another keyboard. Certainly adding performance signals would not be looked on in a good light, so there would have to be symbols eliminated to make way for your 'comma and a half', or whatever. Now, my keyboard might have some Ç, ç, ü, é, à and è symbols which aren't on yours, but it has the same total number so #, @ and | are ore difficult to access. Or were you proposing an extra function key to access another layer of ASCII?

Moving on to your music equivalent - if one ignores key signatures (irrelevant to prose and not over useful for poetry) there are seven different lengths of note (in my transcription program, anyway), the same of rests, half a dozen percussion instruments, crescendo and diminuendo and level, some glissandi, and portamentos or vibratos - but these are essentially related to pitch, which we can't specify for readers - a whole lot less information than on an alphabetic keyboard. And when you're recording a piece of musique contemporaine there are frequently non-standard symbols invented by the composer to specify non-standard instruments or non-standard use of conventional ones (like plucking the violin strings the other side of the bridge, or the rhythm of clanking chains). These can be hand written onto the score with no particular difficulty - when a printed copy is required, problems.

When using the 'rytmo' system of dubbing films, the text is written onto a film which runs in synchronisation with the picture, originally directly onto the acetate base with a felt tip, more recently computer generated at a constant speed, but the spacing between the letters varying to match lip movements. Somehow I don't see this catching on with readers (even if they have training on the karaoke bouncy ball).

 

[Ray McCarthy]

which we can't specify for readers

Unless maybe we are Chinese or something.

I have to agree with @The Judge
I didn't quite understand the original post.

The , ; : . - (as in interrupted) and ... (long pause) are not fully utilised by most writers. We also have the ' symbol to sometimes indicate a syllable break? So that's sort of seven symbols to indicate timing. Then we have ? and ! and the rarer ?! (Interrobang, or questioning exclamation) all of which are a different pause from a period (full stop). Rarer is the Paragraph symbol ¶ as we now add extra space and/or an indent (Character Map in Windows or AltGr R in Linux). Rarer still is the Section mark § (A vertical pair of S ligature, shift AltGr S in Linux as AltGr S =ß).

Is the Tilde ~ also sometimes used for a pause or interruption?

Opening and closing quotes may also imply timing when reading?

I read last autumn an article on punctuation. Romans wouldn't read out loud from a written work without practising it privately due to lack of punctuation for timing. Greeks had about five marks then. The last new symbol commonly used symbol isn't @ for email. That's the Commercial at for six buns @ fourpence etc.

Movable Type in Europe from 15th C started to standardise symbols. Note the 19th C typewriter can print two characters in the same place or slightly overlapped in any direction. Wordstar on DOS and CP/M had non-destructive backspace too, to allow most computer printers to create extra symbols this way.

We are not going to easily get any new symbols now (the Euro € can be simulated on old Typewriter or Wordstar), especially not for punctuation.
In Windows I had to use the Character Map Utility as AltGr (=Alt and Ctrl keys if there is no AltGr on keyboard) only does a few extra keys on Windows UK keyboard. Linux Keyboard map is much more useful (I think the there is an equivalent Apple Mac key).

But as to Syntax and Grammar generally, what is great in English is ability to be ambiguous.

EDIT:
May be useful for some:
Punctuation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In that article and my the book I have, Eat, Shoots & Leaves:

Cecil Hartley's poem identifies their relative values:
The stop point out, with truth, the time of pause
A sentence doth require at ev'ry clause.
At ev'ry comma, stop while one you count;
At semicolon, two is the amount;
A colon doth require the time of three;
The period four, as learned men agree.

 

[pambaddeley]

As most people struggle to use the apostrophe correctly these days, I think this is a non starter!

 

[Idealect]

very interesting replies! Literally every single one has something in it that's new to me.

I'll respond to a few things, not in proportion to my appreciation of your points, information or posts -all of your replies are very much appreciated.

(going back now, especially Ray McCarthy's post, which alone I didn't address even a little, despite its abundance of information and ideas,

-out of sheer syntactical satiation.)






I'm guessing it was some overarching point in my OP which wasn't understood? I should have replaced "my argument" for "my contention", as there wasn't meant to be a main overarching point. (except to post some thoughts, and thereby cunningly extract some ideas and discussion from the forum).

Tinkerdan, afaik english has no syntax markers other than punctuation, and I was using english as as my starting point so maybe that's what you're seeing? Certainly there could be other kinds of syntax markers: from detailed musical/lyrical breakdowns that one might most obviously use to store "spoken word" pieces, to markers for individual words, such that "swung" could be fast or a slow, or smooth or abrupt, for two examples -to numerical subscript references to formally numbered word meanings, to sentences branching in multiple directions, coming back to the same point with the beginning of each branch, to I have no idea what, or groundwork conception.




I very much doubt languages naturally evolve to include absolutely everything that could benefit them, (and I think such particular syntax might need the "absolutely" to qualify that "everything". it certainly doesn't fall under "need"), and I wonder if they have any natural upward trajectory at all.

I think this is the sort of thing someone would have to invent, and more importantly spread, if it were to become a part of a language. Individuals might invent and use their own additional syntax privately, but how would it naturally go from there to even using it with others, let alone to their otherwise idiosyncratic syntax become an institution of the language? Not to draw a link in usefulness, but I assume that commas and full stops were invented. How could they naturally arise?

Also, I'm guessing that not only are 99.9% of people far too sensible to be tinkering with what one might call the nature of their language, -without too much grandiosity, but there's also inherent incentives not to get in the habit of using your own particular syntax: if you adopt habits of thought or writing which lean on things that are different than the general language, it's liable to be an obstacle to communication, (and potentially a mark that one is, I hate this word, but, "other"). And even if such subtle tinkering were something people would have any interest interest in adopting (to play with and refine their language, or for whatever reason), there would still be the inherent conflict that different tinkerers would create different, conflicting systems.

(Afaik there hasn't been some Tome produced in the effort to create an extended standardised lexicon (if that word applies here), -then widely disseminated by prestigious institutions and people, widely received with interest by some alternative public that didn't come up with "two dollar word", turn "literally" into literally, or not literally, -whatever, or make "verbose" a negative (scorn for comedic effect, except "ten dollar word"*) -and then widely found to be of little, no, or negative value.)


*"the public" (-lol, forgive me for my rant) imo isn't to blame for "literally": the few satanists!/cthulhu-worshippers at a few dictionaries, that decided to take a shot at ruining the word, are responsible for their own actions. (May they burn in hell.)


By the way the "might" before "think "wouldn't this be easier"" was deliberate: its hypothetical. It doesn't seem like a very useful thing to be going around thinking. I assume that for many serious writers such spots would not come up, even if looking for them as a thought experiment, -as a serious writer, all else equal, will be strongly in the habit of using language, as it actually exists.

But personally I've found that if I'm in a language critiquing, I-want-a-pony, think-of-the-possibilities mode, as I on occasion am, -then the prevalance of such spots is only limited by the extent of my desire for a cute cousin of the horse, and how little I actually wish to write something. (rather than consider in awe, and on occasion, analyse, language).



Boy yeah would it involve some upheaval for keyboards! and/or a lot of meticulous and constant postediting, perhaps to the word.

An extra function key! ...yes I totally was proposing and did think of that. (/s)

(actually is /s just such a syntactical marker?.)

I think most of the musical syntax mentioned would transfer with small modifications. Keys could denote tones, speeds, levels of stream-of-consciousness vs descriptive -ness, all kinds of things! Vibrato could denote shaky/tremulous/buzzing/strained/something speech (or balance, probably other stuff). Portamentos could denote a (smooth) transition from one action to another: e.g. "she ran jumped slid across the ice". Though such musical notation wouldn't (as a rule) be as precise in writing, it wouldn't need to be: it could depict relative changes or rhythms, in imo a similar way to how commas don't convey the exact length of a pause.


The Rytmo system, which I am glad to hear of, sounds like just the sort of thing I'm thinking of. I wonder if it is especially inapplicable to writing, if hearing the words is what makes the irregular spacing easily parsable. If not it could be an interesting way to write dialog.

 

[tinkerdan]

There are punctuation Markers and Linguistic markers: it may be in English that the nature of English led to ambiguity in linguistic markers and led to the call for punctuation markers: but that doesn't mean that the linguistic markers vanished.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I'm guessing it was some overarching point in my OP which wasn't understood? I should have replaced "my argument" for "my contention", as there wasn't meant to be a main overarching point.

I'm a bit lost in in this post as to what you ARE suggesting.
Chomsky argues that at a "deep level" there isn't much difference between Romance Languages, other Western, Finnish/Hungarian, Chinese / Japanese, Hebrew / Arabic/Gaelic, Sanskrit/Hindi or even Africian families. All are just as easy for babies to learn, even Xhosa or similar languages with clicks, and share common underlying ideas. The Alphabet vs Ideographic or other writing systems are irrelevant details. Reasonable translation is possible because there is a commonality.

I'm baffled still as to what you are asking for.

Chinese for instance uses tone to differentiate some words that might otherwise be phonetically the same*. Written Chinese is unrelated to most spoken Chinese, hence people that in China can't communicate AT ALL, vocally, can use written Chinese, to a large extent. Amazingly the Chinese spoken languages (Usually only spoken Mandarin) can be transliterated fairly well using Roman/Latin alphabet using pinyin.
Pinyin is not a transliteration of Chinese symbols/Ideographic writing but of Mandarin speech.

The word Hànyǔ (simplified Chinese: 汉语; traditional Chinese: 漢語) means the spoken language of the Han people and pīnyīn (Chinese: 拼音) literally means "spelled-out sounds".[6]

[* In English the pronunciation may be totally different but spelling identical; Lead on the dog's collar. Soldering the lead pipe. The Polish man put polish on his shoes. The difference is obvious phonetically in speech but only by context in writing. The other way round exists as 'where', 'were', 'wear' are context only in actual speech but different spelling in text. Even for English, the written and spoken are actually separate languages, so dialogue in fiction has to cheat slightly as it would not work as well if it was an exact transcription. Compare a good modern play / film / radio / TV script as the actors actually say it, with good fiction (not George Lucas or Shakespeare).]

 

[Idealect]

I'm not sure why you think I'm asking for something.



My first post was kind of phrased as a thesis, but really my arguments I wanted to put forth rather than to argue. I thought I corrected/clarified this careless framing with:

" I should have replaced "my argument" for "my contention", as there wasn't meant to be a main overarching point. (except to post some thoughts, and thereby cunningly extract some ideas and discussion from the forum). "

(a contention is something one puts forth in a debate -somewhat like a premise, while an argument, in this sense, is something which one puts forth to prove a point.)
(I checked freedictionary.com, (which is my favourite online dictionary), and it seems to confirm I haven't got my words confused)


To be clear, my OP was not just unclear on this point but actively incorrect. e.g. I said "lack of", when I was thinking that there's no reason there couldn't be a lot more-of: rather than that the current set were seriously lacking functionality, which "lack of" easily could imply.

I thought presenting it in such a way would be inconsequential or beneficial: by taking positions somewhat more strongly myself, I might be making it easier to bite into them in reply, but perhaps this is less of a debating forum, or "riffing" forum, and more of responding-directly-to-the-actual-post forum, or something.





And English isn't being compared to other languages (which I don't think I implied), but a hypothetical, future, additional-syntax-markers expansion.

(or, as such an "expansion" wouldn't inherently need to sink any roots, or come into common use, "module" would be a more correct word than "expansion")






If I'm to make a single suggestion, then it's simply that there could be a lot more syntax markers, and that it would be nice if there was a large standardised set of them for people to use if they wished.



In any case, more interesting information in your post, so hopefully I'm still miscommunicating. (joke, positive.)

(so e.g. that "joke, positive" could have a standardised symbol like a light- but bright- -red line above the text it refers to, and I think it would be cool if things like that existed as shared conventions, even if they were rarely or barely ever used.)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

then it's simply that there could be a lot more syntax markers, and that it would be nice if there was a large standardised set of them for people to use if they wished.

I'm still not clear what the extra syntax markers might do that we can't do now.

Less is always more. That's why the Alphabet took thousands of years to grow from 22 to 26 and there is no one to one map of phonemes in spoken English to the graphemes, the alphabetic letters. Also the "punctuation" marks serve multiple purposes depending on context and position to the letters.

The apostrophe (which only looks like a single quote) is so badly used already people talk of abolishing it.

Very many existing symbols are being LESS frequently used, extra ones are not going to happen.

The following are infrequently used: (all easy on UK Linux keyboard)
; semicolon
¶ Paragraph
§ Section
^ Carat
¦ Broken pipe
| pipe or bar
\ (not /) backslash
¬ (I forget what this is called and what it's for!)
~ Tilde
# Hash (outside USA, common in USA where it's called the Pound).
° degree is getting less used (AltGr Shift 0)

Becoming less frequent is the dash – rather than hyphen -, your word processor may do it "automatically". The ellipsis is also becoming less common ...
The underline symbol _ on its own BETWEEN words is rarer too.


Brackets ( and )
The [ ] { } < > and « » as alternate brackets are infrequent (for nesting). Similarly we are supposed to show quote nesting by swapping from single to double or vice-versa “I want to say `Blah´ is terrible,”

Uncommon in UK and USA (all easy on UK Linux keyboard)
« (French quotes or Guillimot, used other countries)
»
· Interpunt
¨ (I suppose the double dots of an umlaut?)
¡ (Spanish, if sentence ends with !)
¿ (Spanish, if sentence ends with ?)
(UK Linux keyboard also does ` ´ “ ” , the single quote keys have to be done twice or it accents next letter thus ù (key to left of 1 then u). The French Windows AZERTY must be the worlds worst for character map! They are going to fix it but it will still be AZERTY. )

Tricky letters easy on UK Linux keyboard (On UK Windows á í é ó ú € are easy, AltGr a e i o u 4)
ç and Ç (Oddly the Ç is easy on UK Linux keyboard and impossible on French)
ß Double SS, German
ð Old Anglo Saxon Thorn (Icelandic) = Th, and was replaced by Y in English 15th Print, hence Ye is really The
đ
ŋ
ħ
ł Ł Polish
ẃ (Maybe for Polish)
ŧ
ý (???)
þ (Icelandic?)
µ (m = Milli, so in Engineering µ 'mu' is for Micro, hence Alt Gr m)
½
⅓
¼
⅝
⅞
™
±
³

But Mac OS and Windows have mouse driven Character Map utilities.
I think the dropping usage is because of ignorance in the usage and ability to type them. It's amazing how many people don't know about the Character Map Utilities, or don't bother cycling their phone/tablet touch screen keyboard.

I use Char map utility for
Æ ö å and such like, also dash – rather than hyphen - as well as Greek, Cyrillic etc.

 

[J Riff]

That's enough. The language has evolved far beyond the average person's ability to utilize it fully. Only natural additions - things that force themselves into the language through usage - should be considered as worth adding to the confusion.
Last night I ran into a few things in some 100 year-old books - ellipsis use very common, and using four dots instead of three. He said, she said, enclosed in brackets. Different spacing on quotation marks. These books are eminently readable, there's no confusion whatsoever, and that's probably )the best way, because the people who would have to deal with it are the writers, and it's bad enough already.*)

 

[Idealect]

I'm still not clear what the extra syntax markers might do that we can't do now.

Very many existing symbols are being LESS frequently used, extra ones are not going to happen.

I'm not sure whether you think those statements stand in contradiction with my own. Assuming, that by "not going to happen" you mean not going to become a major part of everyday communication and writing in the next 50 or 100 years, then the only (arguable) disagreement would seem to be one only implied by my unstated agnosticism on that point, -agnosticism which is not the endpoint of a great deal of consideration.

As opposed to "no one will ever create a large extended set of standardised syntax", which barring civilizational collapse someone is bound to do, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, by the year 3000, and actually for all I know maybe somebody already has. -which you no doubt don't mean, but would squarely contradict me.


I didn't say the effect of any unique syntax marker could not be effectively duplicated by writing, or much more importantly, that the general effect on prose would even be positive if such symbols were used, to directly signify things rather than having authors need to conjure them by subtle language use.

(Though I don't see how having options could make it negative, presumably the general effect would be positive or 0, with a heavy leaning towards 0).

Such tools, even if they were wildly successful in their intended purpose would, AEE (All else equal), result in a loss of craftsmanship; as a result of a reduced focus on craftsmanship, -craftsmanship having been made easier in some small degree and therefore being a slightly higher hanging fruit. (Unless such tools opened up new possibilities/avenues for craftsmanship which come to think of it I assume they would)

It could have a negative effect by that means, but the default assumption should surely be that adding options doesn't take away, just as all those rarely and unused syntax markers don't take away from the expressiveness of words, commas and full stops.


And obviously the presumption would be that: first enthusiasts would play with such symbols, and maybe some particularly useful ones would filter down, but there simply would exist a standardised set, with some small but sufficient degree of prestige/visbility/distribution, to be used in shared communication, likely firstly in experiment, with linguistic rather than authorial interest.

Less is always more. That's why the Alphabet took thousands of years to grow from 22 to 26 and there is no one to one map of phonemes in spoken English to the graphemes, the alphabetic letters. Also the "punctuation" marks serve multiple purposes depending on context and position to the letters.

I'm not disagreeing that less is always more (though as it happens I do; more in the general prose style of "infinite jest" for me, please, -but I haven't, and I'm not) but I don't see how the particulars of language... milling-about-randomly, or even "evolution" if we grant that what I think is a misnomer is in fact accurate, -would or could prove that possibility.

I suppose I should make some kind of argument that beyond a certain point language doesn't necessarily evolve, but I wouldn't know where to start. As I'm a little dull this particular second I'll just motion vaguely in the direction of the world, and leave it to others' judgement.

The apostrophe (which only looks like a single quote) is so badly used already people talk of abolishing it.

I'm sad to hear of this. Case in point.



Imo most of the functions you mention are useful. Bracket and quote nesting help clarity. [] square brackets can denote paraphrasing.







That is an absolutely great collection of syntax and letterings (and misc)! Thank you for collecting and sharing it.

 

[gdoc]

Artificial attempts to impose new methods like this are doomed to failure. The great strength of language is that no one controls it. The French do things like this, and they are routinely ignored, especially by the young. Indeed, the richness of English stems from the fact it is a blend of Anglo-Saxon and Middle French, with plenty of loan words imported as a result of Britain's adventures throughout the world.

Attempts to reduce and even remove ambiguity rob language of its poetic potential. I like it as it is. The emphasis is then on the writer to ensure meaning is clear.

 

[chrispenycate]

Written language as it stands is largely adapted for transmission of information, not interpretation. With the increasing importance of audiobooks it is clear that, even though the words are correct, the dynamics, both level and rhythmic, generated by an interpreter (voice talent) are not going to be the same as the author has imagined. Music has 'accelerando' and timing (BPM) markers, multiple lengths of note or silence, accents, along with crescendi/diminuendi and mezzopiano et al to define this, which is obviously more critical in musical (or even poetic) interpretation than prose. So, while the general public might not appreciate the subtleties, it could be useful for a professional actor.

But something we have nowadays which would have been extremely difficult for those seventeenth century typesetters is a continuously modifiable colour spectrum, probably not usable fnot practicalor printed books, but not requiring any new code, merely international standardisation. It would not be easy to encode more than two characteristics, so voice pitch, loudness and speed together is probably not practical.

This would demand an enormous amount of preparation work on the part of the author, and a lot of training for both him and the voice talent, and I'm not sure the version obtained by the reader doing his own interpretation, without the extra guidance, won't be as good, if different.

 

[Ursa major]

So, while the general public might not appreciate the subtleties, it could be useful for a professional actor.

In 1990, as part of a course on presentations, led by a former actor (who may -- unless I got my wires crossed -- have played Ralph Bellamy on The Archers), there was quite a bit on how to... er... present them (including various vocal exercises). One of the techniques -- which I'd describe in detail if I could either recall what they were**, or could easily lay my hands on the presentation notes -- involved marking up one's text to indicate the major and minor pauses, and the identify the word to receive the most stress (and the word to receive the second most stress).

As one might imagine, the actor was most interested in how one should mark up an otherwise plain text (because we'd be marking up our own) and I don't recall whether he'd ever been given pre-marked sentences to read. However, I seem to recall that in his collection, Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective, GRRM included a teleplay which did include the occasional "beat" indication (i.e. a pause whose length would be, I suppose, related to the flow of the spoken words surrounding it).

And I would guess that the director of a play would, on occasion (or more generally) give actors instructions on how to present their lines, which might get written on the script (in the same way as orchestral players can be seen marking up their scores during rehearsals, indicating tempo and volume, and even -- for string players -- which way their bows might be expected to be travelling).


** - I seem to recall that long pauses were marked with // and shorter pauses with /.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

actors instructions on how to present their lines

more so on more recent than older. The amount and kinds of stage directions vary enormously on plays I've read. I suppose one of the more recent ones would be "A man for all Seasons". I've read "She Stoops to conquer" and much Shakespeare.

Musicals have more info? I don't remember reading any opera or operetta.

 

[Ursa major]

Musicals have more info? I don't remember reading any opera or operetta.

I was thinking of the times when I've watched the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra during an open rehearsal.