Zur Geschichte der Interpunktionskonzeptionen des Deutschen – dargestellt an der Kodifizierung des Punktes / On the history of the conception of punctuation in German - a description exemplified by the codification of the full stop

Abstract

This paper deals with the historical development of theories of German punctuation from the 15^th century till today. The focal point lies on the period. A comparison of the different ways of theoretical explanations about how punctuation works shows an interesting change: Older theories focused the role of punctuation and likewise the period for the reader; later theories ignore the role of the reader and see punctuation marks as markers for specific linguistic constructions. The paper wants to show the reasons for this change of perspectives. At the same time I want to rehabilitate the early attempts of explaining punctuation: a modern theory of written language and its use can show that a reader oriented online-perspective on punctuation is more adequate to the data than a construction oriented offline-perspective. The analysis leads to some more general assumptions about how punctuation as a whole supports the process of reading.