Taamei hamikra—the cantillation signs טעמי המקרא

A Torah scroll is written without vowels and without signs. But it is not read anyhow: every word is sung to a set turn of melody, and that turn shows where the thought divides and where it holds together.

Three things at once. First, notes: each sign has its own melodic figure, and among Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Yemenites the figures differ while the signs are the same. Second, punctuation: the signs divide into disjunctives and conjunctives, and the whole sentence is articulated by them like a tree. Third—and this is the main thing—interpretation: where a disjunctive stands, one thought ends, and not always where you would expect.

Whence. The Talmud speaks of "the division by the accents" as part of what was handed on in the reading—so the division was oral long before it was written. It was written down by the masoretes of Tiberias in the ninth and tenth centuries, together with the vowels; the Aleppo Codex is their work.

A special case. Three books—Psalms, Proverbs and Job—have their own system of signs, unlike the rest; in Hebrew they are named for their initials, the sifrei emet.