What is a bracket?
Brackets, or square brackets, is a graphic sign that is used in the Portuguese language to punctuate very specific situations. It is also used in exact areas, such as in numeric expressions: { 20. [ 2 ] 2 }.
When should I use square brackets?
Brackets are not used very often. We find this sign in dictionaries and use it only in a few cases:
1. in dictionaries. The phonetic transcription that some dictionaries present is enclosed in square brackets. The same happens with the etymology of words, also contained in some dictionaries:
['kazu] is the phonetic transcription of the case.
2. In citation suppression. In quotations, when a part of the text is omitted, the ellipses between square brackets are used (in this case, instead of square brackets, we can choose to use parentheses):
"just as the chroniclers bent over the land and the native with a spirit that is both naive and practical, the missionaries of the Society of Jesus […] joined their faith […] a constant zeal for the conversion of the Gentile […].” (BOSI, 1994, p. 19)
3. in quotes. When inserting proper information in an author citation, information that is not part of the original content must be inserted between square brackets:
“The highest and most balanced point of Brazilian realist prose is found in the fiction of Machado de Assis [who continues to impress more than 100 years after his death].” (BOSI, 1994, p. 174)
4. In cases where parentheses cannot be used. To avoid the use of duplicate parentheses, square brackets are used, which makes the meaning of the text more understandable:
Grammar is divided into phonology (the study of phonemes [which include orthoepia, prosody and spelling]).
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