Les points de suspension : usages, typographie et prise en charge numérique

Abstract

Ellipsis: Uses, Typography and Digital Support

Since their first appearance, the ellipsis has conquered several domains: discourse, typography, bibliographical references… human-computer interfaces of modern computer applications. The mastery of this sign is not only the business of specialists but of a whole community: writers, readers and publishers. In English and French, the explosion of digital publishing has been accompanied by several tools on punctuation, mainly writing guides. In other languages, as in Arabic, these tools are not always available, especially on the Web; this is certainly due to the late use of Western punctuation, which did not really prevail in the Arabic text until the middle of the 20th century. Thus, Arabic-speaking writers/readers often use resources written for other languages. This is particularly true for the ellipsis, which has been used timidly in English and French since their first appearance at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th. This work looks at ellipsis from a practical point of view: the goal is to expose writers/readers to everything they need to be able to take advantage of this tool. The first question will be to gather definitions proposed in the three languages: French, English and Arabic. We then propose some of the uses of the ellipsis. On the signified level, there will be three essential uses common to all writers/readers: in discourse, in quotations and in enumerations. For uses in discourse, we bring and discuss cases of use in Arabic; both French and English having enough literatures. On the significant level, it will be a question of the forms attested in the literature and those currently chosen as standards. Finally, as a multiform sign, its digital support is also discussed.