“Alas” is a colloquial unchangeable interjection. It is used to express negative feelings such as sorrow or frustration. This word can be replaced by the phrase "unfortunately".
Punctuation is a complex science, and the comma is an insidious sign. Often when writing, questions arise about the correctness of its formulation.
The rule, studied back in school years, states that interjections are always separated by commas. And the word “alas” is no exception. But there are deviations from this rule (rare, but they still exist).
Therefore, it is worthwhile to understand in what cases, after “alas”, you can safely put a comma on both or on the one hand, and in which it is worth putting some other punctuation mark (exclamation point, brackets, period).
An interjection of “alas” is distinguished by commas if there is no exclamatory intonation during pronunciation: on both sides, if it is in the middle of a sentence; on the one hand, if it is at the beginning or end.
No commas
- If the interjection "alas" is a union of "but." After and before this combination of “but alas” there are commas: “I would very much like to come and congratulate you personally, but alas, we are too far apart.”
- If the interjection “alas” is part of the phraseology (stable phrase) “alas and ah.” The phraseologism itself is isolated, but there is no punctuation mark directly in it: "I would love to lend you money, alas, ah, myself aground."
Other punctuation marks
- If the word "alas" acts as an exclamatory insertion sentence. In this case, after “alas” there is an exclamation mark, and the word, being in the middle of the sentence, is isolated by such punctuation marks as a dash (less often with brackets). It is worth noting that the word that follows it must be written with a lowercase letter: "In this situation - alas! - nothing can be changed."
- If interjection plays the role of a separate sentence in the text. Then after it just a dot or an exclamation mark (in rare cases a question mark) is put: "Alas! And your life is miserable!"