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Our alphabet consists of a fixed series of signs for minimum units of significant sound (phonemes), from which the written language can be assembled. The letters of the alphabet could also be described as literary construction material. However, this material alone is not sufficient to formulate writing in a comprehensible form. The separation of words and their arrangement into sentences are made possible only by a logical use of spaces and punctuation marks. These essential, un spoken elements could be characterized as boundary instruments with which the basic material of the alphabet can be handled, i.e., related and separated.
Hand compositors know from the layout of their case that the item lying next to their hand in the lowest compartment and in large quantities is a "blind" piece of type metal, namely the word space. Here again, we come across the elementary importance of an absence of signs. It is only through the logical interposition of these empty spaces that a row of signs becomes comprehensible, legible typesetting.
The historical commencement of a consistent use of spaces to separate words cannot be given a precise date. Early Greek and Roman inscriptions and manuscripts in capital letters have no spaces between the words. In later Roman records, centralized points are used to indicate proper names, then used between ordinary words and at the end of sentences.
