PUNCTUATION, MARKS of. - References to the punctuation of texts are already found in ancient grammarians, but in the literary codices transmitted to us from antiquity there is found only, derived from epigraphy, the occasional use of dots as marks of distinction between one word and another, or of other particular signs (paragraptus, stigma, asteriscus, etc.), whose value is not clearly defined.
In the Middle Ages, beginning with cursive scripts, punctuation follows a very elementary scheme, distinguishing a long, a short, and an intermediate pause by placing a dot at different heights in relation to the letters (high, low, or in the middle). Subsequently, in order to avoid frequent confusions, a small stroke, vertical or oblique, was also used, either alone or in various combinations with the dot. In the 9th century the long pause is marked by a dot plus a comma, placed alongside or beneath it; in the 12th it is indicated by two adjacent dots for the intermediate pause. The question mark already appears in some manuscripts from the end of the 8th century, though it is lacking in many from the first half of the 9th. It should be borne in mind that until the beginning of the modern age punctuation was used very freely and followed rhythmic rules intended to regulate the reader's vocal inflection rather than to distinguish the syntactical parts of discourse.