Does the Absence of Punctuation in the Text of /Yvain/ in the Manuscript BnF Fr. 12560 Follow any Rationale? A Methodological Note

Abstract

This paper investigates the punctuation of Yvain in the manuscript BnF Fr. 12560 and demonstrates that focusing on interesting details only leads to misleading conclusions. Most verses are marked by a final punctuation mark. The more seldom cases that display no punctuation mark draw attention and require an explanation. By examining only these specific cases, we could think that the presence of function words and the continuity of syntactic structures from one verse to the next are valid explanations. However, such conclusions do no hold if the whole text is taken into account. Indeed, the contrast between the presence and the absence of punctuation is not strong enough.