Ausencia, creación y reformulación de la norma: consideraciones sobre la puntuación en la documentación archivística (ss. XVI-XVII)

Abstract

The present work exposes an aproximation of the different
reasons that could justify the distinct models of punctuation found in the archival writing of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The aim of this research is to understand how the new writing models have taken inspiration from the medieval methods first used by the early treatise writers as Saint Isidore. To this purpose, a small sample of documents with different features of the text has been collected from the General Archive of the
Indies in Seville, Spain. Subsequently, these documents have been used to prepare a classification based on the frequency of use parameters of the prosodic pause indicator. Thanks to the distinction of the three main
tendencies (abuse, moderation, deficit) shown in the punctuaction of the text, in relation to the proportion of word-pause indicator, it has been possible to deeply study the totality of those graphic mechanisms of the different documents that involve the embodiment of prosodic pause. Likewise, it has been possible to observe those aspects of the text that can be influenced by the use of certain punctuation patterns, their absence or the free interpretation of the norm releted to them.