Orthography 字 · 09
Capitalization and punctuation
The rules governing upper- and lower-case letters and the punctuation system in European Portuguese, including the options left open by the 1990 Orthographic Agreement.
enCapitalization and punctuation are the two devices that give a text its visible structure: the first marks the status of words — what is a proper noun, what opens a sentence — while the second organizes its rhythm and the boundaries of meaning. In present-day Portuguese both are governed by Base XIX of the 1990 Orthographic Agreement, which simplified several conventions and, above all, made optional many uses that had been compulsory.
When a capital is required
An initial capital is obligatory in a small set of cases:
- at the start of a sentence, after a full stop, a question mark, an exclamation mark, or sentence-final ellipsis;
- in the proper names of people, places, peoples as an entity, celestial bodies, institutions, and brands: Camões, Lisboa, o Tejo, a Assembleia da República;
- in the points of the compass when they name a region, not a direction: o Norte de Portugal (“the North of Portugal”) but seguir para norte (“to head north”);
- in acronyms and abbreviations that demand it: ONU, Sr., V. Ex.ª.
Nasceu no Porto, a norte do Mondego, e estudou em Coimbra.
‘Born in Porto, north of the Mondego, he studied in Coimbra.’ Porto and Coimbra are proper names; norte is a direction, hence lower-case.
When a lower-case letter is used
The Agreement fixed in lower case a number of items that older tradition wrote with a capital. Today the following take a small initial letter:
- the days of the week, the months, and the seasons: segunda-feira (“Monday”), abril (“April”), outono (“autumn”);
- the names of languages and demonyms used adjectivally: o português (“Portuguese”), uma autora portuguesa (“a Portuguese author”);
- the points of the compass as a direction and their derivatives: a sul (“to the south”), vento de nordeste (“north-easterly wind”).
The optional cases
The most far-reaching novelty of Base XIX was to allow, in several cases, either a capital or a lower-case letter at the writer’s discretion — provided the choice is applied consistently throughout the text. Optional, among others, are:
| Category | With capital | With lower case |
|---|---|---|
| Forms of address | o Senhor Doutor | o senhor doutor |
| Fields of knowledge | estudar Matemática | estudar matemática |
| Categorizing words for places | Rua da Liberdade | rua da Liberdade |
| Titles of works (after the 1st element) | Os Maias | Os maias |
Note too that the reverential capital — writing Pátria, Estado or Nação (“Homeland”, “State”, “Nation”) with a large initial out of respect or emphasis — is likewise optional, not an orthographic rule. Proper names contained within a title always keep their capital: Viagens na Minha Terra.
Punctuation
Portuguese punctuation serves two intertwined purposes: to signal the pauses and intonations of speech and to delimit syntactic units. The marks in common use are:
| Mark | Name | Main function |
|---|---|---|
. | full stop | closes a declarative sentence |
, | comma | separates elements and clauses |
; | semicolon | a pause between full stop and comma |
: | colon | introduces a list, quotation, or explanation |
? | question mark | closes a direct question |
! | exclamation mark | marks an exclamatory sentence |
… | ellipsis | suspension or incompleteness |
— | dash | direct speech and parenthesis |
« » | angle quotes | quotation and emphasis |
The comma is the most delicate mark. As a principle, one does not separate the subject from its predicate, nor the verb from its direct complements. It is used, rather, to set off vocatives, appositions, interpolated clauses, and the items of a list. Before the conjunction e (“and”) the comma is dropped when it joins terms of the same clause, but is admitted when e introduces a clause with a different subject.
O Pedro, que chegara tarde, pediu desculpa; depois, sentou-se.
‘Pedro, who had arrived late, apologized; then he sat down.’ Commas isolate the non-restrictive relative clause; the semicolon marks the larger pause between the two actions.
The dash and the quotation marks
In European Portuguese, direct speech is introduced canonically with a dash (—), not with quotation marks. Each utterance begins on a new paragraph, and the dash reappears to set off the reporting verb (disse “said”, perguntou “asked”).
— Já leste o livro? — perguntou ela. — Ainda não — respondi.
‘“Have you read the book?” she asked. “Not yet,” I replied.’ The dialogue opens with a dash; the second dash brackets the narrative aside.
For quotation and the highlighting of words, the Portuguese standard favours angle quotes, or guillemets — « » — reserving curly quotes (” ”) for a quotation within a quotation. The full stop is generally placed outside the quotation marks when the quoted material is not a complete, self-standing sentence.
In short
Since 1990 the system has become at once simpler and more permissive: fewer obligatory capitals, more decisions left to the writer’s judgement. The golden rule remains consistency — within a single text, the choice made in one optional case should be repeated in every analogous one.
Sources
- Acordo Ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa . Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda (1990)
- Nova Gramática do Português Contemporâneo . Edições João Sá da Costa (1984)
- Prontuário Ortográfico e Guia da Língua Portuguesa . Casa das Letras (2011)