Linguistic notes: on iota and comma

In Norwid’s writings, the nouns koma [comma] and jota [iota] that literally mean respectively: ‘comma’ and ‘the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet’ or ‘the Polish letter and consonant j’, in the vast majority of cases have secondary, figurative meanings – in particular, when they are elements of phraseological units, but also in some other contexts they usually refer to some small elements of a text. It is symptomatic that a large part of Norwid’s usages more or less directly refer to the well-known biblical quotation from the Gospel of Matthew, which in King James Version reads: “For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Norwid’s use of comma and iota analysed in this article indirectly confirms the importance that the poet attached not only to the graphic layout and punctuation, or more generally to the formal aspects of the texts, but also to their proper, profound understanding.