The punctuation marks are not used grammatically, but to indicate intonation.
| . | The period indicates a falling, or final, intonation contour, not necessarily the end of a sentence. |
| ? | Similarly, a question mark indicates rising intonation, not necessarily a question. |
| , | A comma indicates “continuing” intonation, not necessarily a clause boundary. |
| ?, ¿ | In some transcript fragments you may see a combined question mark and comma, or an inverted question mark. These indicate a rise stronger than a comma but weaker than a question mark. |
. “final” intonation
? rising intonation
, “continuing” intonation
¿ between rising and “continuing” intonation
