Pointing

What is the relationship between pointing and joint attention? Can two individuals point to an object and not jointly attend to that object? Can two individuals jointly attend to an object without pointing to that object? Do the phenomena of pointing and joint attention emerge, evolve and develop at the
same or different times? Are humans and non-humans both equally capable of pointing and joint attention? When do infants develop the ability for pointing and joint attention? Do the diverse distinctions involved in accounts of joint attention — rich / lean, cognitivist / non-cognitivist, individualist / antiindividualist, internalist / externalist, reductionist / relationalist, highlight the relevance of pointing in different ways? Can the jointness in joint attention be understood in terms of “pointing looks”?

В статье на материале Мультимедийного русского корпуса (МУРКО)описывается система русских указательных жестов. Основное внимание уделяется описанию базовых указательных жестов – указанию пальцем и рукой (открытой ладонью). На основе статистической обработки корпусного материала определяются основные лингвистические (референциальные и прагматические) факторы, влияющие на выбор жеста говорящим.

This paper presents a usage-based, Cognitive Grammar analysis of Place as a symbolic structure in signed languages. We suggest that many signs are better viewed as constructions in which schematic or specific formal properties are extracted from usage events alongside specific or schematic meaning. We argue that pointing signs are complex constructions composed of a pointing device and a Place, each of which are symbolic structures having form and meaning. We extend our analysis to antecedent-anaphora constructions and directional verb constructions. Finally, we discuss how the usage-based approach suggests a new way of understanding the relationship between language and gesture.

Bilinen canlılığın 3.8 milyar Dünya yılı evvel başladığını tahmin ediyoruz. Kategorilendirdiğimiz milyonlarca canlı türü var. Hepsi bu gezegen üzerinde yaşıyor. 1957’ye kadar da Dünya dışında hiçbir canlı gözlenmemişti. Dünya dışında gördüğümüz ilk canlının ismi Layka. Bir köpek. Bir uydu içinde Dünya’dan yörüngeye fırlatılmıştı. Dünya dışında gördüğümüz ilk “üstün zekalı yaşam formu” yine insan. Bizden biri. İsmi Yuri Gagarin. Bir kozmonot. O da Dünya’dan fırlatıldı. Dünya dışında başka bir gök cismi üzerinde gözlenen ilk canlı yine bir insandı. Dünya’nın uydusu olan Ay’da görüldü. İsmi Neil Armstrong. Ondan sonra on iki canlı daha gözlendi Ay yüzeyinde. Hepsi yine özel araçlar içinde, Dünya’dan Ay’a fırlatılmış insanlardı. Dünya dışında gözlenen canlıların hepsi Dünyalı ve Dünya’nın uzağında sadece belirli bir süre yaşayabiliyorlar. Şanslı olanlar Dünya’ya geri dönüyor. Layka şanssızdı mesela. Dünya’dan uzaklaşabilen bu Dünyalılar dışında, evrenin herhangi bir köşesinde Dünyalı olmayan bir tek-hücreli bile göremedik hala.

As this foreword is written, at the dawn of the 21st Century, the cognitive sciences are in epistemological ferment. The exuberant optimism of the late 20th-Century adaptationist programme has, itself, started to fragment like the many fingers of a wave against the implacable shore of empirical reality. Dramatic new directions in the philosophy of mind (enactivism, embodied cognition, distributed cognition) and in developmental psychology (dynamic systems theory) are beginning to mature. This special issue, Pointing: Where Embodied Cognition meets the Symbolic Mind, edited by Massimiliano Cappuccio, brings together in one volume an incendiary mix of the emerging generation of philosophers and language researchers, who bring their diverse perspectives to moor on one of the most fascinating phenomena in human development: the ability to co-orient in both space and time to a common focus with what seems, on the face of it, to be a simple pointing gesture. The emerging significance of research and analysis pertaining to pointing reflects a recent phase shift in the sciences concerned with mind and behaviour. To put these innovations in context, it might be worthwhile to review the sweeping upheavals that have recently occurred in the conceptual bedrocks of psychology and the philosophy of language.

Satelit merupakan suatu perangkat yang sangat penting dan vital adalah gambar satelit pada dunia telekomunikasi. Satelit dapat mengcover area yang cukup luas. Dalam prakteknya untuk menerima atau mengirim data ke sebuah satelit dibutuhkanlah sebuah antena, agar sinyal dikirim atau diterima dapat berjalan lancar diperlukan tindakan pointing antena atau mengarahkan antena ke sebuah satelit yang diinginkan dengan tepat serta presisi. Dalam proses pointing antena diperlukan beberapa parameter penting, yaitu Azimuth dan Elevation. Parameter ini dapat kita hitung secara manual namun sangatlah susah dan kompleks. Untuk mempermudah penentuan nilai Azimuth dan Elevation perlu dibuat sebuah program komputer yang praktis dan mudah digunakan.

The catoptromancy concerns all the techniques of divination by reflective surfaces. Yet, in his Perspective curieuse from 1638, Jean-François Nicéron regrets that, in some cases, the prodigious effects of the catoptrics are used in abusive way inside such practices. Based on mathematic principles of perspective, this illusionist art tries to give a significance to an informal representation, with the aim to reconstruct the deliberately distort image, by means of a phantomlike reflection. When, at the end of his Italian period, French painter Simon Vouet realizes a sanguine drawing, representing a catoptric device, he becomes the ambassador of this recent technical invention, fascinating curious personalities of that time. The painter deploys a group of eight satyrs performing accurate and revelatory gestures, such as indico and comput digitis. In that way, the characters explain the functioning of the machine and invite us to think about the mise en abyme of images and the effects of the mimesis phantastiké, revealing the true aspect of reality.

This paper suggests that reference to phenomenal qualities is best understood as involving iconicity, that is, a passage from sign-vehicle to object that exploits a similarity between the two. This contrasts with a version of the ‘phenomenal concept strategy’ that takes indexicality to be central. However, since it is doubtful that phenomenal qualities are capable of causally interacting with anything, indexical reference seems inappropriate. While a theorist like David Papineau is independently coming to something akin to iconicity, I think some of the awkwardness that plagues his account would be remedied by transitioning to a more inclusive philosophy of signs.

Signed utterances are densely packed with pointing signs, reaching a frequency of one in six
signs in spontaneous conversations (de Vos, 2012; Johnston, 2013a; Morford & MacFarlane,
2003). These pointing signs attain a wide range of functions and are formally highly diversified.
Based on corpus analysis of spontaneous pointing signs in Kata Kolok, a rural signing variety of
Bali, this paper argues that the full meaning potentials of pointing signs come about through the
integration of a varied set of linguistic and extralinguistic cues. Taking this hybrid nature of pointing
phenomena into account, it is argued that pointing signs may become an intrinsic aspect of
sign language grammars through two mechanisms: morphemization and syntactic integration.
Although not entailed in this research, this approach could implicate that some highly systematized
pointing systems of speaking communities may to a degree be grammatical as well.

Domestic dogs have proved to be extremely successful in finding hidden food following a series of human social cues such as pointing (an extended hand and index finger indicating the location of the reward), or body position, among many other variants. There is controversy about the mechanisms responsible for these communicative skills in dogs. On the one hand, a hypothesis states that dogs have complex cognitive processes such as a theory of mind, which allow them to attribute intent to the human pointing gesture. A second, more parsimonious, hypothesis proposes that these skills depend on associative learning processes. The purpose of this paper is to provide data that may shed some light on the discussion by looking into two learning processes by using an object choice task: the effect of interference between stimuli on the preference for human social cues and the effect of generalization of the response to novel human social stimuli. The first study revealed that previous training using a physical cue (container location) may hamper the learning of a novel human social cue (distal cross-pointing). The results of the second study indicated stimulus generalization. Dogs learnt a novel cue (distal cross-pointing) faster due to previous experience with a similar cue (proximal pointing), as compared to dogs confronted by a less similar cue (body position) or dogs with no previous experience. In sum, these findings support the hypothesis about the important role of associative learning in interspecific communication mechanisms of domestic dogs.

When interacting with others, we often use bodily signals to communicate. Among these signals, pointing, whether with the eyes or the hands, allows coordinating our attention with others, and the perception of pointing gestures implicates a range of social cognitive processes. Here, we review the brain mechanisms underpinning the perception and understanding of pointing, focusing on eye gaze perception and associated joint attention processes. We consider pointing gesture perception, but leave aside pointing gesture execution as it relates to a distinct area of cognitive neuroscience research. We describe the attention orienting effects of pointing and the neural substrates for the perception of biological cues. We consider the multiple high-level social cognitive processes elicited by pointing gesture perception and examine how pointing gestures are related to the general taxonomy of gestures. We conclude by emphasizing that pointing is a social phenomenon and that a full account of pointing will require an integrative approach taking into account the distinct perspectives from which this phenomenon can be investigated.

El estudio de las expresiones referenciales en las lenguas de señas se ha basado, principalmente, en tratar de utilizar las mismas etiquetas del análisis gramatical de las lenguas orales, a veces, tomando en cuenta una perspectiva tipológica. Esto, aunque en principio puede parecer adecuado, comete el error de ignorar dos dimensiones esenciales del lenguaje. Por un lado, invisibiliza la diferencia entre las modalidades expresivas y, por el otro, ignora a la gestualidad que es parte de la lengua oral. Este artículo propone una perspectiva descriptivamente adecuada de las expresiones que se identifican como pronombres personales en español y en Lengua de Señas Mexicana (LSM). Se argumenta, en suma, que sin la consideración de estos "puntos ciegos", la comparación es estéril.

The paper describes the differences between two Russian pronominal adverbs, zdes’ and tut ‘here’, which are full synonyms. The author analyzes the data of Russian National Corpus from the statistical and semantic points of view and concludes that zdes’ refers to some location, which is situated near to a speaker, but out of a speaker’s private zone. On the contrary, tut refers to the event, which takes place at some location, and a speaker positions him/herself as a central component of this event. The analysis of the gestural accompaniment of these pronominal adverbs, which has been carried out on the data of the Multimodal Russian Corpus, shows that zdes’ is regularly accompanied with index finger pointing, while tut prefers pointing with open hand. The reason of this gestural distribution relates to the inner form of the correspondent gestures.

There is a controversy about the mechanisms involved in the interspecific communicative behaviour in domestic dogs. The main question is whether this behaviour is a result of instrumental learning or higher cognitive skills are required. The present investigations were undertaken to study the effect of learning processes upon the gaze towards the human's face as a communicative response. To such purpose, in Study 1, gaze response was subjected to three types of reinforcement schedules: differential reinforcement, reinforcer omission, and extinction in a situation of "asking for food". Results showed a significant increase in gaze duration in the differential reinforcement phase and a significant decrease in both the omission and extinction phases. These changes were quite rapid, since they occurred only after three training trials in each phase. Furthermore, extinction resulted in animal behaviour changes, such as an increase in the distance from the experimenter, the back position and lying behaviour. This is the first systematic evaluation of the behavioural changes caused by reward withdrawal (frustration) in dogs. In Study 2, the gaze response was studied in a situation where dogs walked along with their owners/trainers. These results show that learning plays an important role in this communicative response. The possible implications of these results for service dogs are discussed.

Zeigen ist eine Grundtätigkeit. Ohne sie lassen sich weder Wissen noch Handeln, weder Erkennen noch Sozialität denken. Eine das Vorverständnis prägende Assoziation zum Zeigen ist die Hand, die auf Dinge und Phänomene in der Welt verweist. Doch die Zeigegeste ist bei weitem nicht erschöpfend. Auch mit Zeichen und mit Sprache wird gezeigt; Bilder, Diagramme und Tabellen zeigen; und nicht zuletzt zeigen auch Blicke, Bewegungen und Handlungen. Zeigen, so zeigt sich, ist also mehr als Referenz. Was aber ist Zeigen?
Im Zeigen verschränken sich Fragen, die nicht nur von einer Disziplin bearbeitet werden können. Der vorliegende Band folgt dieser Einsicht, indem er die Vielschichtigkeit des Zeigens nicht durch einen fachspezifischen Zugang begrenzt. Wie zeigen Bilder? Eine Frage, die hier nicht nur an die Bildwissenschaft, sondern auch an die Wissenschaftstheorie gerichtet wird: Welche Funktion haben zeigende Bilder in der Wissenschaft? Und wie ist das Verhältnis von Sagen und Zeigen? Ein Thema nicht nur für die Philosophie, sondern auch für die Sozialwissenschaften. Wie – und nicht nur was – zeigen wir uns in der sozialen Interaktion?

So unterschiedliche Disziplinen wie die Informatik, die Tanz- und Filmwissenschaften, Philosophie, Soziologie, Psychologie und die Kunstgeschichte tauschen sich darüber aus, wie auf den unterschiedlichsten Feldern Zeigen praktiziert wird, wie Zeigen scheitert und welche Reflexionsprobleme dieses Thema produziert. So wird im Zusammenspiel scheinbar weit entfernter Ansätze die Kontur einer Grundtätigkeit sichtbar. Zeigen erweist sich als eine Grunddimension unseres Handelns. Sie durchdringt die Bereiche des Wissens, des Körpers und der Bilder, ohne sich auf eines dieser Gebiete reduzieren zu lassen.

The study analyzes the main types of autodeictic gestures, i. e. the gestures which point to the speaker. The main configurations of the pointing hand are described and the main linguistic factors affecting these configurations are specified. We distinguish between the thematic autodeixis with the index finger and the performative autodeixis with the open hand. Besides, three types of autodeixes — portemanteaux have been described, which combine the deictic and non-deictic components. The study makes use of the data of the Multimodal Russian Corpus (MURCO).

The present study examines the roles that the gesture of the Raised Index Finger (RIF) plays in Hebrew multimodal interaction. The study reveals that the RIF is associated with diverse linguistic phenomena, and tends to appear in contexts in which the speaker presents a message or speech act that violates the hearer's expectations (based on either general knowledge or prior discourse). The study suggests that the RIF serves the function of discourse deixis: Speakers point to their message, creating a referent in the extralinguistic context to which they refer as an object of their stance, evaluating the content of the utterance or speech act as unexpected by the hearer, and displaying epistemic authority. Setting up such a frame by which the information is to be interpreted provides the basis for a swifter update of the common ground in situations of (assumed) differences between the assumptions of the speaker and the hearer.

Outernet is a satellite-based data service where the content of public information in the form of the file and archive are transmitted through a specific satellite channels and automatically received by the receiver and stored the result in the form of the files that are ready to access by offline. In the research of this paper presents the analysis results about satellite receiver performance system over the Outernet system by using Helix antenna as feed parabolic dish reflector by designing and realizing the 6 turns coil of helix antenna with circular polarization that working on the frequency of L-band 1545 MHz which works for receive the information signal from satellite Inmarsat 4-F1. The analysis process are done by the pointing antenna mechanism and link budget requirement calculation to know the quality of links on Outernet systems observed from the downlink side. The results of the implementation of antenna Helix as feed parbolic reflector has fulfilled the specifications of Outernet device with the gain in the amount of 5,47 dBi. The pointing testing shows the morning and afternoon get the highest SNR value in the amount of 13,31 dB. The result of the link budget testing on the downlink side obtained Eb/No value in the amount of 13,66 dB, subsequently from the comparison between the link budget required with link budget testing obtained link margin value of 34,31% which is the quality of this link is good because the Eb/No value of the test results greater than Eb/No required.

ABSTRAK Outernet merupakan suatu layanan data berbasis satelit dimana konten informasi publik dalam bentuk file dan arsip yang dipancarkan melalui kanal satelit khusus dan diterima secara otomatis oleh alat penerima dan menyimpan hasilnya dalam bentuk file-file yang siap diakses secara offline. Pada penelitian skripsi ini memaparkan hasil analisis mengenai kinerja sistem penerima satelit pada sistem Outernet menggunakan antena helix sebagai feed reflektor parabola dengan merancang dan merealisasikan antena helix 6 lilitan dengan polarisasi sirkular yang bekerja pada frekuensi L-band 1545 MHZ yang berfungsi untuk menerima sinyal informasi dari satelit Inmarsat 4-F1. Proses analisis dilakukan dengan mekanisme pointing antena dan perhitungan kebutuhan link budget untuk mengetahui kualitas link pada sistem Outernet dilihat dari sisi downlink. Hasil implementasi antena helix sebagai feed reflektor parabola telah memenuhi spesifikasi perangkat Outernet dengan gain sebesar 5,47 dBi. Pengujian pointing menunjukkan waktu pagi dan siang hari mendapatkan nilai SNR tertinggi sebesar 13,31 dB. Dari hasil pengujian link budget pada sisi downlink diperoleh nilai Eb/No sebesar 13,66 dB, kemudian dari perbandingan antara kebutuhan link budget dengan pengujian link budget diperoleh nilai link margin sebesar 34,31% dimana kualitas link ini baik karena nilai Eb/No hasil pengujian lebih besar dari Eb/No yang dibutuhkan.

It has been 20 years since the adoption of the 'meaning-making' paradigm as a lens for reaching a better understanding of the museum experience. My paper presents parts of my doctoral research which micro-analyzed visitors' encounters in order to explore the ways and means they use to shape and share their meaning-making. It argues on the nature of meaning-making as a social activity by exploring the process of making rather than evaluating the depth or validity of meaning. Towards this direction, I conducted qualitative research across three non-national museums in London, UK, and collected data by implementing audio and video-based research that successfully captured visitors' interactions in their context. Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis provided the key concepts of the analysis which revealed three major patterns, all highlighting the performative, social and sequential character of the meaningmaking process. By bringing together theory and practice, my paper invites museums to consider meaning-making as a process as well as the product of this process through which visitors socially make meaning about themselves, others, the exhibits as well as the institution in which their interaction occurs.

The present account explains (i) which elements of nonverbal reference are intersubjective, (ii) what major effects intersubjectivity has on the general development of intentional communication and at what stages, and (iii) how intersubjectivity contributes to triggering the general capacity for nonverbal reference in the second year of life. First, intersubjectivity is analysed in terms of a sharing of experiences that is either mutual or individual, and either dyadic or triadic. Then it is shown that nonverbal reference presupposes intersubjectivity in the communicative intent indicators and referential behaviour, and indirectly in modifications of previous behaviour in response to communication failure. It is argued that different forms of intersubjectivity entail different types of communicative skills. A comprehensive analysis of data on gaze-related intersubjective behaviour in young infants shows that interaffectivity and interattentionality enable referential skills early in development and together allow for complex behaviour. Early referential skills, it is proposed, arise by other mechanisms than in nonverbal reference. Reliable and consistent use of nonverbal reference occurs when interaffectivity and interattentionality coalesce with interintentionality, which affords general cognitive skills that together permit a decontextualisation of communicative behaviour.

В статье на материале Мультимедийного русского корпуса (МУРКО) описывается система русских указательных жестов, осуществляемых различными движениями головы (жесты голова вперед, боковой кивок, поворот головы и указание подбородком). Статья является продолжением исследования системы русских указательных жестов. На основе статистической обработки корпусного материала определяются основные лингвистические (референциальные и прагматические) факторы, влияющие на выбор жеста говорящим. Кроме того, в статье проводится сопоставление систем ручных и головных указательных жестов.

The paper describes the Russian system of head pointing. The author analyzes the data of the Multimodal Russian Corpus (MURCO) from the statistical point of view, and singles out the main semantic, pragmatic, and referential factors, which affect the selection of the type of head pointing as a co-speech gesture. The gestures head forward, tilt, nod, and chin pointing seem to be the most frequent types
of head pointing in Russian. The author also analyzes the relations between head and hand pointing, and the main types of syntactical gestural constructions.

With the capability of fast, wireless communication, combined with cloud and location-based services, modern drivers can potentially access a wide variety of information about their automobile's environment. This paper presents a system for information query by the driver by using a simple pointing mechanism, combined with visual feedback in the form of a 3-D Head-up Display (3D-HUD). Because of its 3-D properties, the HUD can also be used for Augmented Reality (AR) as it allows physical elements in the driver's field of view to be annotated with computer graphics. The combination of simple natural user input tailored for the constraints of the driver with a see-thru 3D-HUD allows drivers to query information while minimizing visual and manual distraction.

— Tongue controlled mouse is an ingenious human computer interface specially designed for disabled person and people with tetraplegia. Here we present a paper that evaluate the permanent magnet and metal detector to control an input device. Based on the tongue position we can define the result is shown in this paper. In this paper we demonstrate the following experiment with simple hardware technique but actually the result system is very compact like dental retainer. This paper becomes very useful for future research studies to operate a computer input device.

Previous research has mainly explored visitors’ meaning-making and experience through their conversations in the museum. This paper acknowledges the multimodality of communication by drawing upon multimodal social semiotics and discusses the use of pointing gestures as a sociocultural means of visitors’ meaning-making. It frames the discussion with two examples from the audio-visual data collected for the author’s doctoral research that explored the sociocultural means visitors used when experiencing seven exhibits across three museums in London, UK. Visitors’ encounters were audio and video recorded, allowing their verbal and non-verbal interaction to be captured as well as those aspects of the context that visitors drew upon during their interaction. The analysis points towards the fact that, apart from using pointing gestures to negotiate and identify their foci of attention, visitors also use these to reinforce and validate their meaning by pointing towards the institutional, selected by the museum, modes of meaning.

In humans, cultural differences in advanced social cognition have been well-demonstrated. In tasks pertaining to theory of mind, for instance, individuals pass standard assessments of false belief understanding at substantially different ages in different cultural environments. Less well studied are more basic sociocognitive capacities, such as joint attention, which are held by many
to constitute the foundational skill set for advanced sociocognitive reasoning. Here we review the striking group differences in joint attention displayed by great apes as a consequence of being
raised in different cultural environments, including wild habitats, institutional settings such as zoos and biomedical research centers, and home-rearing or language-training settings. Like
humans, apes develop tactics for joint attention that are adaptive to the particular environments of their early rearing experiences. Great apes serve as animal models for environmental
influences on sociocognitive capacities in our own species.

In this paper we examine the differences in use between distal and proximal demonstrative terms (e.g., singular "this" and "that", and plural "these" and "those" in English). The proximal-distal distinction appears to be made in all languages and therefore promises to be an important window on the cognitive mechanisms underlying language production and comprehension. We address the problem of accounting for the distinction through a corpus-based quantitative study of the deictic use of demonstratives in Dutch. Our study suggests that the distal-proximal distinction corresponds with use of the proximal for intensive/strong indicating (i.e., directing of attention) and the distal for neutral indicating. We compare our findings with empirical findings on the use of English demonstratives and argue that, despite some apparent differences, Dutch and English demonstratives behave roughly similarly though not identically. Finally, we put our findings into context by pulling together evidence from a number of converging sources on the relationship between indicating and describing as alternative modes of reference in the use of distal and proximal demonstratives. This will also lead us to a new understanding of the folk-view on distals and proximals as distinguishing between nearby and faraway objects.

Pointing combined with verbal referring is one of the most paradigmatic human multimodal behaviours. The aim of this paper is foundational: to uncover the central notions that are required for a computational model of multimodal referring acts that include a pointing gesture. The paper draws on existing work on the generation of referring expressions and shows that in order to extend that work with pointing, the notion of salience needs to play a pivotal role. The paper starts by investigating the role of salience in the generation of referring expressions and introduces a distinction between two opposing approaches: salience-first and salience-last accounts. The paper then argues that these differ not only in computational efficiency, as has been pointed out previously, but also lead to incompatible empirical predictions. The second half of the paper shows how a saliencefirst account nicely meshes with a range of existing empirical findings on multimodal reference. A novel account of the circumstances under which speakers choose to point is proposed that directly links salience with pointing. Finally, this account is placed within a multi-dimensional model of salience for multimodal reference.

The aim of this paper is to explore the minimal representationalrequirements for pointing. One year old children are capable of pointing: what does this tell us about their representational capacities? We analysethree options: (a) Pointing presupposes non-perceptual representations. (b) Pointing does not presuppose any representation at all. (c) Pointing presupposes perceptual representationsRather than fully endorsing any of these three options. The aim of the paper is to explore the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Listening to music calls forth a construction of meaning as the result of an interaction with the sound. This process of sense-making can keep pace with the unfolding through time but it can keep distance with respect to the sonorous unfolding as well, allowing the listener to deal with music both at the level of sensory experience and at the level of imagery and representation.As such we argue for an enactive approach to music cognition that brings together the experiential and cognitive points of view.We provide the concept of pointing as a heuristic tool for sense-making, both as a primitive marking system and as a mechanism of selection. It allows us to use deictic devices which locate individual elements in context and stress the field of pointing rather than the symbolic field of cognition. Deictic elements, furhter, are related to the concept of indexicality which entails processes of singling out, as is obvious from the use of pragmatic anaphora which allows us to refer back and forward in a text. In order to do so we must have access to the flow of discourse as a whole, where parts may be re-taken up and anticipated. It invites the listener to build route-descriptions and cognitive maps which allow him/her to navigate mentally through the music and to compare the actual sounding elements with their projections in imagery.

Much has been written on the punctuation practice of late sixteenth-and seventeenth-century English writers in order to work out the ultimate function of marks of punctuation. The main point of discussion has almost ever been whether punctuation indicated syntactic relationships or represented speech pauses either to give emphasis in oral delivery or just to be able to breathe. The focus of this paper, however, is the theory rather than the practice, in particular, the set of rules and conventions used by schoolmasters to guide students in their use of stops. Thus, textbooks used at the time to teach reading and writing will constitute our main sources of information to achieve the following aims: (i) to offer a classification of the different marks of punctuation described, (ii) to establish the functions schoolbooks assigned to punctuation marks in general, and (iii) to assess the importance schoolmasters gave to pointing. The results of this study -which follows the works by and Salmon (1962) -will contribute to shed light on the ever-lasting debate on the principles guiding Early Modern English punctuation usage.