Does ellipsis end a sentence in Spanish?

[Chris Clemens]

I'm working on a first grade book, which means I keep sentences together on a single braille page.

In Spanish, does the ellipsis end a sentence?

Here is an example--please excuse the omission of the accent on accented u's, and the use of the right-side up explanation mark.

--Deja que averigue... !Ni una gota de aguita!

So, can I divide this paragraph between braille pages after the ellipsis?

Thanks, Katrina Ostby

[Chris Clemens]

Hi Katrina,

Thank you for the lovely rendition. So clear.

Apparently there are ellipsis and then there are ellipsis. I think that most of the time they are sort of a filler--like "and so forth." And as you know, unlike English, the foreign language rules specify the print spacing must be followed. This is quite helpful because you don't have to actually know the purpose of the ellipsis when you don't know the language. In this case, the ellipsis is clearly associated with the first sentence by being joined to it with no space. There is a clear space in print before the next sentence begins. I believe that second sentence is still part of the this paragraph. If your formatting requires that only a sentence is intact on a braille page, but the paragraph may be continued on a next braille page, go right ahead. That is clearly the next sentence, after the ellipsis. New sentence, same paragraph. Keep the ellipsis as in print, unspaced, with the first sentence. If it won't fit, I would move that entire first sentence to the next braille page.

Watch out for ellipsis used as blanks to fill in! I'll use English for purposes of illustration:

I went to to ---- park. is sometimes seen as

I went to ... park. or

I went to the ----. is seen as

I went to the ...

In these cases, substitute the braille double dash. This iis covered in the Interim Manual. Usually there is a pattern of usage in the book that gives you the clues you need.

Hope this helps.

--Joanna

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