PUNCTUATION, in Grammar, the art of pointing, or of dividing a discourse into periods, by points expressing the pauses to be made therein.

The points used are four; the period, colon, semicoon, and comma, which are too well known to require any particular explanation. We shall only observe, in general, therefore, that the comma is used to distinguish nouns from nouns, verbs from verbs, and such other parts of a period as are not necessarily joined together. The semicoon serves to suspend and sustain the period when too long; the colon to add some new or supernumerary reason or consequence to what is already said; and the period to close up the sense and construction, and release the voice.

It has been asserted, that punctuation is a modern art, and that the ancients were entirely unacquainted with the use of our commas and other points, and wrote not only without any distinction of numbers and periods, but also without distinction of words; a custom which, Lipsius observes, continued until the hundred and fourth Olympiad, during which time the sense alone divided the discourse.

What places this beyond dispute is the Alexandrian manuscript, in the British Museum. Whoever examines this codex will find that the whole is written continuo ductu, without distinction of words or sentences. How the ancients read their works written in this manner, it is not easy to conceive.

After the practice ceased of joining words together, notes of distinction were placed at the end of every word. In all the editions of the Fasti Capitolini these points occur. The same are to be seen on the Columna Fostrata. For want of them, we find much confusion in the Chronicon Marmoreum, and the covenant between the Smyrnaeans and Magnesians, which are both at Oxford. In Salmasius’s edition of Dedicatio Statuae Rigillae Herodis, the same confusion occurs, where we find ΔETPITE and ∆euf ισi. Of these marks of distinction, the Walcote inscription found near Bath may serve as a specimen;

IVLIUSv VITALISv FABRI CESISv LEGv XXVv Vv V STIPENDIORUMv

After every word here, except at the end of a line, we see the mark v. There is an inscription in Montfaucon, which has a capital letter laid in an horizontal position, by way of interstitial mark, which makes one apt to think that this way of pointing was sometimes according to the fancy of the graver.

P. F ERRARI VS HERMES CAECINIAE d DIGNAE CONIVGÏ H RARISSIMAE NVMERIAE H

Here we observe after the words a T laid horizontally, but not after each word, which proves this to be of a much later age than the former.

As the improvement of stops appears not to have taken place whilst manuscripts and monumental inscriptions were the only known methods of conveying knowledge, it is conjectured that it was introduced with the art of printing. The fourteenth century, to which we are supposed to be indebted for this invention, did not, however, bestow those appendages which we call stops. Whoever will be at the pains of examining the first printed books, will discover no stops of any kind; but arbitrary marks here and there, according to the humour of the printer. In the sixteenth century we observe their first appearance. From the books of this age, we find that they were not at all produced at the same time; those we meet with in use being only the comma, the parenthesis, the interrogation, and the full point. To prove this, we need but look into Bale’s Acts of English Worthies, in black letter, printed in 1550. In the dedication of this book to Edward VI. we discover a colon, it is true; but as this is the only one of the kind throughout the work, it is plain that the colon was not established at that time, or, if it was, that it had not yet come into common use. Thirty years afterwards, in the sensible and judicious performance of Sir Thomas Elyot, entitled The Governour, imprinted in the year 1580, we see the colon as frequently introduced as any other stop; but the semicoon and the mark of admiration were still wanting, neither of these being visible in Sir Thomas’s book. In Hackluyt’s Voyages, printed in 1599, we meet with the semicoon; but, as if the editors did not fully apprehend the propriety of its general admission, it is sparingly introduced. It has been said, indeed, that the semicoon was brought into use at a much earlier period; but it appears that it was only for the purpose of an abbreviation, as in (ηαmq f) (neq for namque, neque, and not in the sense in which it is now employed.

The semicoon, as well as all the ordinary points, is used in a work entitled Imagines Deorum, printed at Leyden in the year 1581, in Roman characters. We likewise meet with them in the translation of a book written in French by Philip de Mornay, lord of Plessis; in the Schoolmaster of Roger Ascham, printed in 1570, with the exception of the semicoon; and in the Trewnesse of the Christian Religion, by Sir Philip Sidney, published in 1587, in which we find the asterisk, brackets, the interrogation, the comma, and the semicoon, all as we now use them, the colon and period being square dots.
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In an alchemical manuscript, of date 1572, the semicoon is said to be met with, as well as the other three points which are now in common use. The colon and period are abundant in a work entitled Dionysius de Situ Orbis, printed at Venice in 1498, but none of the other stops or points occur. The single point ( . ) appears to be the most ancient. Since the year 1485 the colon was introduced; the comma is first seen about the year 1521; and the more refined semicoon was brought into use about the year 1570.

The invention of the semicoon is most probably due to the English; for, from the Leyden edition of Pliny, 1553, it is evident that the Dutch printers were not then in the practice of using it; and if they were in 1570, Roger Ascham would probably have employed it, since the Dutch were the principal classical printers in his time. But we find that some English books were marked with it at that period.

The note of admiration was the last stop invented, and seems to have been added to the rest at a period not far distant from our own time.

Thus we see that these notes of distinction came into use as learning gradually advanced and improved; one invention, indeed, but enlarged by several additions. But notwithstanding what has been said relative to the use of stops as being a modern invention, we shall find reason to be satisfied that the ancients were not unacquainted with the method of making pauses in speaking and writing, if we attend to the following investigation of Warburton.

“Some species of pauses and divisions of sentences in speaking and writing must have been coeval with the knowledge of communicating ideas by sound or by symbols.

“Suidas says that the period and the colon were discovered and explained by Thrasymachus, about 380 years before the Christian era. Cicero says that Thrasymachus was the first who studied oratorical numbers, which entirely consisted in the artificial structure of periods and colons. It appears from a passage in Aristotle, that punctuation was known in his time. The learned Dr Edward Bernard refers the knowledge of pointing to the time of that philosopher, and says that it consisted in the different positions of one single point. At the bottom of a letter, thus (A.), it was equivalent to a comma; in the middle (A·) it was equal to a colon; at the top (A’) it denoted a period, or the conclusion of a sentence.

“This mode was easily practised in Greek manuscripts, while they were written in capitals. But when the small letters were adopted, that is, about the ninth century, this distinction could not be observed; a change was therefore made in the scheme of punctuation. Unciales literas hodierno usu dicimus eas in vetustis codicibus, quae priscam formam servant, ac solutae sunt, nec mutuo colligantur. Hujus modi literae unciales observantur in libris omnibus ad nonum usque saeculum. Montf. Palaeog. Recens. p. xii.

“According to Cicero, the ancient Romans as well as the Greeks made use of points. He mentions these under the appellation of librariorum notae ; and in several parts of his works he speaks of ‘ interpunctae clausula in orationibus.'

“Seneca, who died a. d. 65, expressly says that Latin writers in his time had been used to punctuation. ‘ Nos, cum scribimus, interpungere consuevimus' Muretus and Lipsius imagined that these words alluded to the insertion of a point after each word; but they certainly were mistaken, for they must necessarily refer to marks of punctuation in the division of sentences, because in the passage in which these words occur, Seneca is speaking of one Q. Haterius, who made no pauses in his orations.

“According to Suetonius, Valerius Probus procured copies of many old books, and employed himself in correcting, pointing, and illustrating them; devoting his time to this and no other part of grammar: Multa exemplaria contracta emendare, ac distinguere et adnotare curavit·, soli huic, iieC ulli praeterea, grammatices parti deditus. It appears from hence that, in the time of Probus, or about the year 68, Latin manuscripts had not been usually pointed, and that grammarians made it their business to supply this deficiency. Quintillian, who wrote his celebrated treatise on Oratory about the year 88, speaks of commas, colons, and periods; but it must be observed that by these terms he means clauses, members, and complete sentences, and not the marks of punctuation. Aelius Donatus published a treatise on Grammar in the fourth century, in which he explains the distinctio, the media distinctio, and the subdis-tinctio ; that is, the use of a single point in the various positions already mentioned.

“Jerome, who had been the pupil of Donatus, in his Latin version of the Scriptures made use of certain distinctions or divisions, which he calls cola and commata. It has however been thought probable that these divisions were not made by the addition of any points or stops, but were formed by writing, in one line, as many words as constituted a clause, equivalent to what we distinguish by a comma or a colon. These divisions were called στιχοι or ξηματα, and had the appearance of short irregular verses in poetry. There are some Greek manuscripts still extant which are written in this manner.”