among grammarians, a point or character marked thus (,), serving to denote a short stop, and to divide the members of a period. Different authors define and use it differently. According to F. Buffier, the comma serves to distinguish the members of a period, in each of which is a verb and the nominative case of the verb: thus, "That so many people are pleased with trifles, is owing to a weakness of mind, which makes them love things easy to be comprehended." Besides this, the comma is used to distinguish, in the same manner of a period, several nouns-substantive, or nouns-adjective, or verbs not united by a conjunction: thus, "Virtue, wit, knowledge, are the chief advantages of a man:" or, "A man never becomes learned without studying constantly, methodically, with a gulf, application," &c. If those words are united in the same phrase with a conjunction, the comma is omitted: thus, "the imagination and the judgment do not always agree."

The ingenious author of the tract De ratione interpungendi, printed with Vossius's Element. Rhetor. Lond. 1734, lays down the use of a comma to be, to distinguish the simple members of a period or sentence; i.e., such as only consist of one subject, and one definite verb. But this rule does not go throughout; the same author instancing many particular cases not yet included herein, where yet the comma is advisable.

See PUNCTUATION.

It is a general rule that a comma ought not to come between a nominative and a verb, or an adjective and substantive, when these are not otherwise joined: thus, in the sentence, God ruleth with infinite wisdom, a comma between God and ruleth, or between infinite and wisdom, would be absurd. But to this exceptions may occur; as when not a single word, but a sentence, happens to be the nominative; thus, in the example first above given, where the sentence that so many people are pleased with trifles, forms the nominative to the verb is, a comma at trifles is proper, both for the sake of perspicuity, and as coinciding with a slight natural pause.

in Music. See INTERVAL.