Emphasis with Spanish punctuation

[Chris Clemens]

In the examples given in the Fall NBA Bulletin it states: "...the emphasis indicator precedes the Spanish inverted exclamation point and question mark."

My question is what if the punctuation is in regular type and the following word is emphasized do you still put the emphasis indicator before the punctuation mark. Section 6.6 b. says "In Spanish, if either the inverted exclamation point or the inverted question mark is printed in the special typeface used for the following expression, the braille typeface indicator must immediately precede the punctuation symbol. I would read that to mean that if the punctuation symbol is not in the same typeface it would not be included in the typeface indicators. Am I wrong to interpret it this way?

[Chris Clemens]

That's an interesting point. Have you seen such a situation? Have you seen a situation in which the opening inverted question mark or exlamation point is in regular typeface followed by text in a special typeface?

I think the purpose of this rule is to establish that the opening inverted puncutation, which is unique to Spanish, assumes the typeface of the text it is associated with in the same manner that the ending punctuation does. In English, opening punctuation, such as quotation marks and parentheses are not included in the typeface indicators regardless of how they are printed. The same is true in foreign language. This rule covers the unique instance of the inverted question mark and exclamation point. I think most print situations are covered here.

It you do have such a situation in print, where the opening punctuation is clearly not emphasized, I'd like to see it so I can discuss it with other. I would be reluctant to separate the opending puncutation from the text it belongs to with a typeface indicator, but as I said, I would discuss it with others if you have such a situation.

--Joanna

[joannavenneri]

Thank you. I am attaching some examples. The punctuation is in black print. The emphasized word is in red.

[joannavenneri]

I would treat the opening questin mark as part of the word and include it in the typeface indicator. That seems in accord with the spirit and intent of the foreign language rule, especially since there is no reason here to do otherwise. No mention is made of the typeface of the question mark. In fact, no mention is made of the question mark at all--just the word that is associated with. The question is not even in a different typeface, but the same color as the other words in the sentence. This is only a visual device to draw attention to the word that follows.

--Joanna

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