question about comment_text()

Is content (comments) called by content_text() defaulted to displaying as a block element? I have disabled all styles relating to comments and so I know this default “block” display isn’t coming from styles…

and I cannot see any way to modify that. Ideas, anyone?

I’m trying to include a span before and after that contains opening and close quotes that are styled via a class. When I put the spans before and after

<span class="bigquote">“</span><span id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>"><?php comment_text() ?></span><span class="bigquote">”</span>

the opening quote and closing quotes appear on separate lines.

Help & insight appreciated!