The Elementary Particles: A Computational Stylometric Inquiry into the Mediaeval Greek-Latin Aristotle

Abstract

This essay investigates the potential of computational stylometry to identify translators of 12th- and 13th-century translations of treatises from Greek into Latin. These treatises contain philosophical, theological, and scientific contents by Aristotle and other authors. First, the parallels between traditional lines of research in the study of mediaeval Latin translations and of computational stylometry in general are outlined. Building on the foundations of traditional philology, we then present an innovative method for the identification of translators. The method is carefully evaluated, based on a corpus of thirty-seven Latin texts attributed to six different translators of Aristotelian and other treatises. As a case study, we reconsider the unresolved attributions of two different 13th-century Latin translations of Aristotle’s Rhetoric.