is a reconstructed form. *ainlif → endleofan → eleven A double asterisk (**) sometimes indicates an intermediary or proximate reconstructed form (e.g The asterisk (), *, is a typographical symbol that is a stylised image of a star. An asterisk is usually five- or six-pointed in print and six- or eight-pointed when handwritten, though more complex forms exist. Its most common use is to call out a footnote. It is also often used to censor words considered offensive. It is often vocalized as star, especially by computer scientists and mathematici In linguistics, an asterisk may be used for a range of purposes depending on what is being discussed. The symbol is used to indicate reconstructed words that are not attested for in surviving texts, including words of proto-languages. For modern languages, it may be placed before posited problematic word forms, phrases or sentences to flag that they are hypothetical, ungrammatical, unpronounceable, etc. Historical linguist August Schleicher is cited as first using the asterisk for linguistic purposes, specifically for unattested forms that are linguistic reconstructions. Using the asterisk for descriptive and not just historical purposes arose in the 20th century. By analogy with its use in historical linguistics, the asterisk was variously prepended to "hypothetical" or "unattested" elements in modern language. Its usage also expanded to include "non-existent" or "impossible" forms. Leonard Bloomfield (1933) uses the asterisk with forms such as *cran, impossible to occur in isolation: cran- only occurs within the compound cranberry. Such usage for a "non-existent form" was also found in French, German and Italian works in the middle of the 20th century. Asterisk usage in linguistics later came to include not just impossible forms, but "ungrammatical sentences", those that are "ill formed for the native speaker". The expansion of asterisk usage to entire sentences is often credited to Noam Chomsky, but Chomsky in 1968 already describes this usage as "conventional". Linguist Fred Householder claims some credit, but Giorgio Graffi argues that using an asterisk for this purpose predates his works. The meaning of the asterisk usage in specific linguistic works may go unelucidated so can be unclear. Linguistics sometimes uses double asterisks (**), another symbol such as the question mark, or both symbols (e.g. ?*) to indicate degrees of unacceptability. *ainlif → endleofan → eleven A double asterisk (**) sometimes indicates an intermediary or proximate reconstructed form (e.g. a single asterisk for reconstructed thirteenth century Chinese and a double asterisk for reconstructions of older Ancient Chinese or a double asterisk for proto-Popolocan and a single asterisk…

Abstract Like the blank and the etcetera, the asterisk is a typographical sign that draws attention to what it professes to conceal. But although the asterisk represents absence it also does the opposite: it is the thing it represents—a star. Part I of this chapter looks at this paradox in representation. It shows the asterisk as a stand-in for consciousness, for sexual terms, for strong emotion and for swearing, as well as for its look-alikes: stars and flowers. However, where early modern readers most often encountered the asterisk was in the margin and so Part II looks at early modern systems of navigating books, the material around the text (notes and indexes and stage directions), in all of which the asterisk has a role to play.