In this article, I hope to strengthen the case that the study of so-called dead languages canbenefit from modern linguistic theory. More concretely, I show that we can apply themodem linguistic concept of the intonation unit, which is a theoretical notion fully developedon the basis of contemporary spoken (!) languages, to the Late Medieval Greekπολιτικος στιχος poetry (12th - 15th century). This type of poetry is conceptually made upof short, simple, "chunks" of information. More precisely, each verse consists of two(stylized) intonation units, demarcated by the fixed caesura, which can thus be equatedwith an Intonation Unit boundary. This thesis is supported by various arguments, both ofa metrical (e.g. avoidance of elision) and of a syntactico-semantic nature (e.g. position ofthe P2 particles).
