Sentence count is the total number of sentences in a text. In English, sentences are delimited by periods (.), question marks (?), and exclamation marks (!). In Japanese, the sentence-ending mark (。) serves as the delimiter.

Sentence count serves as an indicator of text complexity and readability. Too many sentences per paragraph makes text hard to read, while too few makes content feel thin. Writing readability guides cover optimal sentence count guidelines.

Programmatic sentence counting is more complex than simply counting punctuation. Abbreviations (Mr., U.S.A.), decimal points (3.14), and periods in URLs must be excluded.

In relation to character counting, the ratio of sentence count to character count (average sentence length) is an important readability metric. In Japanese, 40-60 characters per sentence is considered readable. Text analysis guides provide additional context.