PROBLEMS OF PUNCTUATION OF DISCOURSE WORDS

The article is devoted to complicated cases of punctuation of the so-called "discourse words". This is an extremely diverse group of units: they differ semantically, syntactically, and intonationally. In addition, many of these units are of an intermediate, borderline character. All this leads to their unstable punctuation. This instability is interesting not only in a normative sense, but also from the point of view of understanding the logic of the functioning of discourse units and the logic of the choice of punctuation by the writers in non-obvious cases. In this case, it is not important whether the punctuation solution in each individual case is an author's or a publisher's. Several examples of unstable punctuation of such units are considered. The first section deals with the word nu. It is found that dictionaries and punctuation reference books draw the line between the interjection well and the particle well in different ways. Punctuation is variable and depends primarily on intonation. The second section deals with pragmaticalized combinations of interjections with wh-words. It is found that punctuation in this case depends on the degree of conventionalization of the expression. In the third section, the expression malo skazat’ is considered, which has a variety of ways of punctuation, the choice of which depends on several factors.