21.119 ideal readers for a database

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 21, No. 119.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
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         Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 07:21:50 +0100
         From: "Patrick Rourke" <ptrourke_at_methymna.com>
         Subject: Re: 21.115 ideal readers for a database

I suspect that the TLG, at least, was originally conceived as a
replacement for concordances, and so the software usually used to access
its texts is oriented around the traditional uses of concordances. It
never struck me as being intended for readers. Leaving out the app crit
is a more interesting issue; when the TLG was first created, there was
no TEI (I'm not even sure how far along SGML was), and so there was no
standard way to mark variants in a text file. Now, for a purely
speculative thought: I suppose it is also possible that the publishers
of the editions that the TLG used as copy texts might have been
concerned about putting themselves out of business; and since the app
crit is probably the most important aspect of the publisher's editorial
contribution to an edition of an ancient text (excluding, of course,
texts with commentaries), it seems like an obvious element of the text
for the publisher to exclude from any reprinting agreement.

Patrick Rourke

> >Greek and Latin corpora that I know make it very easy to find
> >occurrences
> >of words, and (therefore) verbal similarities between texts. On
> >the other
> >hand, it is difficult to create one's own subcorpora there; it is not
> >quite simple to search writers just from one period (i. e.
> >synchronically), or from just one genre. It requires, also,
> >special skill
> >to follow ideas, not words. It is difficult to annotate a text, to
> >mark
> >interesting places (you have to go outside the database for this).
> >It is
> >practically impossible to add other texts to databases. It is
> >impossible
> >to consult different readings (apparatus criticus) of a text.
Received on Fri Jun 22 2007 - 02:33:48 EDT