"Apostrophe" like mark as Furigana - what does it mean?

Japanese Language Questions
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Hi all. Long time user, long time studier, very rare poster. I’ve been getting heavily back into studying after years of only speaking and listening practice in my daily and work life. As such, I’ve been really practicing reading a lot and I’ve encountered something I really don’t understand and am not even sure how to begin trying to figure out.

I’ve been reading ANOTHER, a horror novel I found on Bookwalker, and I keep noticing that sometimes, a little dash or apostrophe-like character is used as Furigana for words or phrases. I have no idea what this is meant to imply or impart about these words.

Does anyone have any insight on what this is, what it’s called, and why it’s used? Examples below:

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Thanks so much for the assistance.

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2

As far as I know it’s just an emphasis marker!

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3

Yeah, it’s an emphasis mark: Emphasis mark - Wikipedia (called “bouten” or “kenten”).

Japanesewithanime has some examples and potential interpretations - though it’s pretty flexible.

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4

I’ve seen something similar in manga, but just a dot next to each character. Always assumed it was just for emphasis.

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Thank you very much for the answer! This is what I assumed, but I couldn’t tell for sure.

I appreciate the help!

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