Veni,* Aemilia!

Would you also replace 'Ave Caesar' with 'Ave, Caesar'? I don't think this comma is required here.

Yes, definitely.

http://goo.gl/6FsP1L
http://goo.gl/uM1ssm
http://goo.gl/VSi2e8

Originally, there was no punctuation in Latin, but since this sentence (and others from the same user) is employing modern conventions, I don't see why make an exception with the comma.

Just compare
=> Yes, I am, God!
with
=> Yes, I am God!
in both English and Latin. This suggests that the comma is in fact necessary, even if no breathing occurs.

That does not suggest that comma is always necessary. Imperative + address is not confusing for lack of a comma.

A rule is a rule, it doesn't depend on the presence or absence of ambiguity. You don't say "The boys are drinking" because "The boys is drinking" is ambiguous (in fact, it is not).

It's not about IMPERATIVE, it's about VOCATIVE. Vocative does require a comma in most languages, English included.

> Imperative + address is not confusing for lack of a comma.
What about something like
=> Kill God!
and
=> Kill, God!
?

They look quite different to me.

>a rule is a rule
>originally there was no punctuation in Latin
Also, rules are not laws you must recognise, but are made by man and should never be sacrosanct.
Not that I care particularly in this case, but I don't think the reasons you listed back up forcing the comma into properly.

As for "Kill God", when it is actually pronounced without the slightest pause, with the speaker failing to make an audible distinction, then it makes sense to retain that ambiguity in writing.

> http://goo.gl/6FsP1L
'A vocative is usually easy to spot in a sentence. It is often separated off by a comma or commas.'

'Often' is not 'always', it clearly means there are cases when it is not set off by a comma.

> http://goo.gl/uM1ssm
'Sometimes the vocative is preceded by ō and, in modern texts, it is ofren set off from the rest of the sentence by commas.'

The word 'often' clearly means it is not always set off by comma.

> http://goo.gl/VSi2e8
This one is not about Latin at all.

> A rule is a rule

There is no such rule for Latin. Comma rules vary greatly among different languages, and Latin writers tend to imitate the rules of their native language to an extent they are OK with.

> This one is not about Latin at all.
Yes, it is. Latin is an Indo-European language.

Well, would you come up with a trustable source where the absence of the comma before or after a vocative is actually defended? It doesn't have to be Latin. Any close or derived language will do. It kind of interests me.

> There is no such rule for Latin.
If no comma is used, the sentence "Neca animal!" would be completely ambiguous. If there are no rules for Latin, we should be here to come up with good solutions and conventions to satisfy and help as many users as possible. Apart from pride, how would you argument that not using a comma is better?

Anyway, you can leave the sentence like this if you want.

How does your "Harrius Potter" deal with the comma in such cases? I'm really curious.

Commas tend to indicate pauses, or, when separating logical units, at least mark the place where one is expected in careful speech (mind the word 'careful'; of course quick speech contains fewer pauses, and the quickest only stops to draw breath). Were pauses preceding vocative common? Do we know?

> Commas tend to indicate pauses
I'm afraid this is not true. In fact, this is an old, misleading idea. The proper use of the comma is grammatical rather than pause-based.

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/commas/

Saying that commas are intended to indicate pauses is as false as saying that grammatical gender is the distinction of a noun with regard to sex.

The idea of "proper use" seems like an opinion to me, however informed, rather than a cold scientific fact akin to a natural law. Could it be argued, from a completely logical and impersonal standpoint, that using commas that way is better? Should we just follow meekly whatever the dominant concept is and never dream of questioning it?

> The idea of "proper use" seems like an opinion to me
No more than saying that not using a comma is better. Grammar is convention, as simple as that.

> rather than a cold scientific fact akin to a natural law
Again, languages are not science.

> Could it be argued, from a completely logical and impersonal
> standpoint, that using commas that way is better?
I've already done that. Look:
=> Neca, animal! Kill (it), (you) animal! (you're asking an animal to kill)
=> Neca animal! Kill the/an animal! (you're asking someone to kill the/an animal)

That's assuming making the difference clear is in itself always better. I think, though, that there's nothing wrong with writing reflecting speech, so if the original spoken sentence could be interpreted in two ways in the absence of context, so shall the written sentence.

The idea that "grammar is convention" is debunked by the fact that ordinary people are never really asked about their opinion, rather they are simply told how to write, and questioning the existing tradition in any way is oftentimes strongly discouraged. Unless, of course, your definition of "convention" does not include that it should be agreed upon.

> so if the original spoken sentence could be interpreted in two ways
> in the absence of context, so shall the written sentence.
No, the stress in the two cases would sound quite different.

> rather they are simply told how to write, and questioning the existing
> tradition in any way is oftentimes strongly discouraged
Yeah, that sucks. Luckily, normative grammar has been abolished in many Brazilian universities.

Well, I've made my point. It's up to rado whether to change it or not.

What/how are future Brazilian linguists taught then? That sounds really interesting.

A different approach has been chosen, where the other dozens of variants are not treated as grammatical infringement or bad usage, but rather branches of a much more complex system. Normative structures such as the object pronoun are not recognisable by Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children until a certain (quite later) age; the subject pronoun is normally used instead.

Languages evolve. Acknowledging this fact is a very good step.

I wish people would see the truth of that, but alas, there is a very strong tradition of dividing usage into proper and improper, to which many people readily subscribe, in accordance with what they have been taught, and tend to further oversimplify it into "good vs bad", regardless of any particularities. I wish the only sort of deviations from the received norm to be met with resistance was the sort that actually makes the writing less readable (that is, more effort- and time-consuming to understand), such as reckless spelling mistakes or discarding commas altogether.

> Apart from pride, how would you argument that not using a comma is better?

I’m just too used to seeing no comma in such cases. 'avē, Marīa' just looks strange to me: I'm just used to seeing 'avē Marīa' without commas too much.

And 'venī Aemilia' uses the same grammatical structire as 'avē Marīa', so I see no reason to require a comma here. Of course, if someone wants to put a comma here, it’s perfectly OK. (After all, there are no real rules, so it’s up to the writer.) But I don’t think it’s required.


If you need examples from other languages, Russian sometimes allows no comma in such cases, although then the noun is interpreted not as vocative but as nominative in that cases ('всяк сверчок знай свой шесток' is a common example). Russian usually has no visible between vocative and nominative, so it’s a really thin line here.

> How does your "Harrius Potter" deal with the comma in such cases?

I think it puts them, but I don't have a copy here to check.