Punctuation patterns in a 17th-century medical manuscript: A corpus-based study of G.U.L. MS 303, Treatise on the Diseases of Women

Abstract

The regularization of punctuation and spelling is one of the distinctive features of Early Modern English (Lass 1999: 8), although in the case of handwritten material punctuation depended greatly on the scribe’s preference, and it was considered to be rather unpredictable. However, recent studies have demonstrated that punctuation followed particular patterns depending on the typology of the text (Calle-Martín 2004, Calle-Martín & Miranda-García 2005). In this line, this paper investigates the punctuation system in a 17th century medical manuscript, entitled Treatise on the Diseases of Women (Glasgow University Library, MS Hunter 303), following the theoretical framework proposed by Lucas (1971).