Abstract
The article presents a model for annotating textual variants. The annotations made can be queried in order to analyse and find patterns in textual variation. The model is flexible, allowing scholars to set the boundaries of the readings, to nest or concatenate variation sites, and to annotate each pair of readings; furthermore, it organizes the characteristics of the variants in features of the readings and features of the variation. After presenting the conceptual model and its applications in a number of case studies, this article introduces two implementations in logical models: namely, a relational database schema and an OWL 2 ontology. While the scope of this article is a specific issue in textual criticism, its broader focus is on how data is structured and visualized in digital scholarly editing.
Highlights
Textual variation is a central object of study for textual criticism, philologie, scholarly editing
A data model is a formalization of the understanding and interpretation of an object, which should be consistent, coherent and explicit; these characteristics allow to move from a conceptual model to a logical model, that is a computable object to be implemented in one or more physical models (Flanders and Jannidis, 2015: 11; Flanders and Jannidis, 2016).viii The conceptual model is here introduced using an entityrelationship diagram, while the logical view is presented in two schemas
Specific queries can be performed in order to isolate, for studying of removing the noise of, the phenomena covered by the annotations: all the changes of verbal tense in section A, all the deletions between witness/stage A and witness/stage B, all the instant rewriting, etc
Summary
Textual variation is a central object of study for textual criticism, philologie, scholarly editing. The nature of the variation is variegated: the difference among readings might concern formal or substantive text features, where––generally and traditionally––the first relate to orthography (spelling, punctuation, etc.) and the second to all other linguistic categories (morphology, syntax, lexis). A copyist might rewrite an entire text, according to changed orthography conventionsii These kinds of patterns indicate the direction of changes, tracing precious paths for exploring the work and its mouvanceiii; they help making sense out of a shapeless set of variants and shed light on textual dynamics. The model proposes to use a set of common general categories and other optional specific categories. These categories describe the features of the readings and those of the variation between them. A number of case studies where the conceptual model is implemented are presented
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