German punctuation marks are considered to be a cohesive system in which every symbol is unambiguous, consistent, and distinct: a symbol has one function, not several; it always fulfills this function, and it cannot be replaced by any other symbols. This volume examines the punctuation symbols in the corpus under these premises and describes the respective functions of the symbols "in competition" with other punctuation marks.

German punctuation marks are considered to be a cohesive system in which every symbol is unambiguous, consistent, and distinct: a symbol has one function, not several; it always fulfills this function, and it cannot be replaced by any other symbols. This volume examines the punctuation symbols in the corpus under these premises and describes the respective functions of the symbols "in competition" with other punctuation marks.