Editor's intervention in the register of compounds in archaic Portuguese texts: some reflections on the use of hyphen

Abstract

The use of hyphen within compounds was not built up before the nineteenth century. Thus, compounds spelled with hyphen in archaic Portuguese texts are a result of editing criteria adopted by editors. From this type of intervention, the relationship between hyphen use – result of a spelling convention – and the definition of compound adopted by the editor are discussed. Its absence is significant to the history of the language.