Meaning of punctus percontativus | Babel Free

Definitions

A reversed question mark (⸮), visually almost identical to the Arabic question mark (؟ (?)), used to mark the end of a percontative statement.

Examples

“punctus percontativus A reversed, but not inverted punctus interrogativus […] used in the 16th and 17th centuries to indicate⟳ the end⟳ of a percontatio.”

“These include⟳ Middleton’s […] idiosyncratic placing of apostrophes and deployment of punctuation marks — exclamation marks, question⟳ marks and a form⟳ of reversed question⟳ mark⟳ which Malcolm Parkes classifies as “punctus percontativus,” associated […] with rhetorical questions.”

“Sometimes we may be encountering the punctus percontativus, used to indicate⟳ a rhetorical question⟳.”

“The medieval question⟳ mark⟳ had an additional function that has since been lost: a mirror-reversed question⟳ mark⟳ (called punctus percontativus) signified a rhetorical question⟳ that did not expect⟳ a direct⟳ answer⟳.”

“The percontation-mark (or punctus percontativus), the standard Arabic question-mark, indicated ‘percontations’, questions open⟳ to any answer⟳ or (more loosely) ‘rhetorical questions’, in various books of c.1575–c.1625.”

“question⟳ mark⟳ in Arabic (؟) — Unicode U+061F: A similar mark⟳ has been proposed for Unicode that would be identical to the punctus percontativus found in some medieval Western manuscripts whose purpose was to indicate⟳ a merely rhetorical question⟳ rather than one requiring or at least expecting an answer⟳: “What was the use⟳ of sending you to school⸮” (Michael Everson et al., “Proposal to add⟳ Medievalist and Iranianist punctuation characters to the UCS” (p. 2).”

CEFR level