The sentence (oratio) is at the heart of the concerns of Priscian in introducing syntax in the Latin grammatical tradition. One important question is that of the relationship between sentence and word (dictio), the latter having been analyzed precisely as “a sentence part” (pars orationis). The medieval notions of suppositum and appositum (the origins of which terms can be found in Priscian’s text) make it possible to have a function-based syntax, these functions being more or less abandoned by the time of the first Humanist grammar. Although Scaliger (1540) deals with the sentence only indirectly (the De causis only touches upon syntax very briefly), the oratio is frequently mentioned in connection with other linguistic elements, among them dictio which is more than just a part of the sentence. Sanctius (1587), on the other hand, proposes a clear and unified, but also restrictive theory regarding the sentence, based on a small number of rigid principles.