It is unusual to have doubts about the use of the period and comma. But this changes when it comes to the semicolon and many do not know how to use it. Fortunately, the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) came to clarify its use.
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In its Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts, the RAE defines the semicolon as a punctuation mark that delimits "linguistic units lower than a sentence, such as the clause or syntactic group" whose "use implies a greater connection between the members of the sentence than indicated by the period, and less than suggested by the comma".
And how do we determine that degree of connection greater than indicated by the period, but less than the comma? The institution itself responds that, within the punctuation marks, the semicolon "presents a greater degree of subjectivity." Keep reading and we will clarify it.
When is it used to separate sentences?
The RAE indicates that the semicolon separates "syntactically independent sentences between which there is a close semantic relationship". And it continues by answering that degree of connection that we want to know so much. For example: "It was necessary for the hospital to remain open all night; shifts had to be established".
The same institution clarifies that in many of those cases the semicolon can also be used. It all depends "on the semantic connection that the writer considers to exist between the statements." In fact, it is left to the writer to judge if they see a strong or weak connection in their statements.
And is there another use?
The academy also points out other less subjective uses of the semicolon. One case is to separate elements of a complex list where there were already commas included. For example: "The executive president, Francisco Ruiz; the CEO, Pedro García; the board member, Antonio Sánchez; and the secretary general, Juan González" . For more, you can consult the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts.
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