AUTHORS' CHARACTERISTIC WRITING STYLES AS SEEN THROUGH THEIR USE OF COMMAS

Identifying the elements that make up an author’s characteristic writing style is one of the keys to determining the authorship or authenticity of a literary composition, The present study, which constitutes a preliminary attempt to uncover such a key, focuses on the placement of commas in sentences, a matter that has hitherto been neglected, analysing the characters that commas follow in works by four authors. It is concluded that the placement of commas differs from writer to writer and may therefore be considered one of the features that makes up an individual literary style, thus providing valuable information for verifying authenticity and speculating on questions of authorship.