Abstract

LAS HERAS CALVO, Miguel. Criterios (extra)lingüísticos atribuidos a los signos de puntuación por gramáticos y estudiosos: desde Grecia hasta la Edad Media. RASAL lingüíst. [online]. 2023, vol.2023, n.2, pp.7-34. ISSN 2618-3455.  http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.56683/rs232088.

The aim of this work is to delve into the (extra)linguistic criteria that grammarians and scholars attributed to punctuation marks from the (alleged) origins of these signs until the Middle Ages. To this end, the most relevant contributions of Greek authors (Dionysius Thrax, Nicanor, Apollonius Dyscolus); Romans, including the Hight Empire (Quintilian) and the Low Empire (Diomedes and Donatus); and medieval, including Early Middle Ages and High Middle Ages (Saint Augustine, Isidore of Seville, Papias, Hugh of Saint Victor, John of Genoa) are reviewed. It has been noted that most theories are based on three basic types, starting from the Greeks (τελεία στιγμή, μέση στιγμή and ὑποστιγμή) and were adopted by late Latin grammarians and other later authors (distinctio, media distinctio and subdistinctio). However, the usage of criteria by which they are described (one syntactic-semantic and one phonetic-respiratory) seems to indicate that these pauses could be reduced to two.

Keywords : history of punctuation; τελεία στιγμή, μέση στιγμή and ὑποστιγμή; subdistinctio, media distinctio and distinctio; (extra)linguistic criteria.

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