A colon (from
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
: , ''pl.'' , ''cola''
[.]) is a
rhetorical figure consisting of a
clause
In language, a clause is a constituent that comprises a semantic predicand (expressed or not) and a semantic predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a syntactic predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase composed of a verb wi ...
which is grammatically, but not logically, complete. In
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
, it is called a ''membrum'' or ''membrum orationis''.
Sentences consisting of two cola are called ''dicola''; those with three are ''
tricola''. The corresponding adjectives are ''dicolic'' and ''tricolic''; ''colic'' is not used in this sense. In writing, these cola are often separated by
colons.
An
isocolon
Isocolon is a rhetorical scheme in which parallel elements possess the same number of words or syllables. As in any form of parallelism, the pairs or series must enumerate like things to achieve symmetry. The scheme is called bicolon, tricolon, ...
is a sentence composed of cola of equal syllabic length.
The
Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...
used this system in the poetic books such as the
Psalms
The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived f ...
.
When
Jerome
Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is co ...
translated the books of the Prophets, he arranged the text colometrically.
The colometric system was used in bilingual codices of
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
, such as
Codex Bezae
The Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, designated by siglum D or 05 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 5 (in the von Soden of New Testament manuscript), is a codex of the New Testament dating from the 5th century wri ...
and
Codex Claromontanus
Codex Claromontanus, symbolized by Dp, D2 or 06 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1026 ( von Soden), is a Greek-Latin diglot uncial manuscript of the New Testament, written in an uncial hand on vellum. The Greek and Latin texts are on facing p ...
. Some Greek and Latin manuscripts also used this system, including
Codex Coislinianus and
Codex Amiatinus
The Codex Amiatinus (also known as the Jarrow Codex) is considered the best-preserved manuscript of the Latin Vulgate version Bruce M. Metzger, ''The Text of the New Testament'' (Oxford University Press 2005), p. 106. of the Christian Bible. It ...
.
See also
*
Comma (rhetoric)
References
Bibliography
* B.M. Metzger, ''The Text of the New Testament, its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration'', Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 29–30.
External links
Colon Part of
glossary of classical rhetorical terms
section of a dissertation on rhetoric discussing the nature of the colon.
Rhetoric
{{rhetoric-stub