ON PUNCTUATION OF INTERROGATIVE PARTICLES CHTO, CHTO LI

The codification of the norm in a dictionary or reference book cannot guarantee the elimination of other variants of the norm. The long-term coexistence of variants may indicate that the dictionary or reference book does not take into account a completely acceptable variety of the norm. Punctuation is no exception: the rule of punctuation fixed in the reference book may sometimes not take into account quite acceptable variants of writing of a particular syntactic unit. It seems that in this case, it is necessary to refine the rule, if it is necessary, to revise its theoretical foundations. According to the author, one of such weak points of modern Russian punctuation is the rule of punctuation in sentences with interrogative particles. The focus of the research is on the particles chto and chto li, which function mainly in colloquial speech in constructions such as: Ty,/_ chto,/_ ne priedesh'? or Ty,/_ chto li,/_ ne priedesh'? As you can see, writing or printing such sentences causes some difficulties: reference books give different recommendations, dictionaries reflect the variety of writing for these particles. The article examines the grammatical features of such sentences, critically analyzes the punctuation rules contained in reference books, and uses dictionary data and texts from The Russian National Corpus as the research material. The author believes that the current rules for the placement of punctuation marks in sentences with interrogative particles need to be significantly improved, and attempts to theoretically understand the grounds for developing a new recommendation for the writing of interrogative particles.