Towards a classification of sentences in medieval grammars: The role of the positurae

This research deepens the syntax studies conducted previously within a project aimed at identifying criteria for the definition of ‘dependent clause’ in medieval grammars, and is dedicated to the use of punctuation marks. In some linguistic traditions of the new Age, such as the German one, the study of punctuation has led to a clear classification of dependent clauses by virtue of the syntactic nature of the use of punctuation itself. The present study aims to verify the antecedents within the medieval tradition, highlighting an interplay within grammar, rhetoric and music towards the definition of syntactic concepts. Already in late Antiquity/Middle Ages (especially Isidore) comma, cola (sic) and periodus were used as punctuation marks (positurae) for comma, semicolon and final dot. In that tradition, comma was a point at the foot of the letter (hence subdistinctio), cola a point in the middle (media distinctio) and periodus a point at the top of the letter (distinctio, id est disiunctio, quia integram separavit sententiam, “the function of a separation because it has divided a complete sentence”). Only the term semicolon (for cola) was formed at the end of the 15th century from the Latin semi- (half ) and colon.