1. LAS MAYÚSCULAS.
- Author
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DE BUEN UNNA, JORGE
- Subjects
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WRITTEN Spanish , *CAPITALIZATION (Writing) , *SPANISH etymology , *ORTHOGRAPHY & spelling , *DIACRITICS , *WRITTEN communication , *HISTORY - Abstract
Very few writings have developed a diacritic system to mark proper nouns. Therefore, it is very special that the Latin alphabet has two versions. In the beginning were the uppercase letters. Lower case letters ate the result of the transformations that capital letters went through along the ages. Nevertheless, in Middle Ages writers turned back once and again to capital letters to ornament their handwriting and in order to emphasize a given letter, paragraph or text. Capital letters, considered as signs with general diacritical aims -and not just as mere ornaments or the result of personal choices-, find their roots in late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. Slowly, they turned into prestigious signs, so nowadays they are use to confer authority and luster to some words. With a worrying frequency, this leads to an abusive use of capital letters. In this paper we revise the most important rules regarding the proper use of these signs in Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2007