La digitalizzazione di testi letterari di area germanica: problemi e proposte

1
La digitalizzazione di testi letterari di area
germanica problemi e proposte
2
Presentation Outline

• Introduction
• Character encoding
• Metrical markup
• Conclusion
• The Digital Vercelli Book Project
• http//islp.di.unipi.it/bifrost/vbd/

3
Introduction

• Digital editions require digital objects
• Image digitizing and processing relies on
  reliable and mature techniques/tools
• Text encoding can be a very time-consuming and
  difficult process
• Literary texts belonging to the Old Germanic
  tradition present specific problems
• Problems range from character encoding
  (transcription level) to meter encoding (edition
  level)

4
Character Encoding

• What does text encoding mean?
• What are characters for a computer?
• What does character encoding mean?
• code really means number
• A 65 (dec.) or 41 (hex.) or 0100001 (bin.)
• The first encoding standards ASCII (7 and 8
  bit), EBCDIC
• The ISO ASCII-based standards ISO 8859-1 etc.
• more characters but interchange problems

5
Old English Characters

• Ancient writing systems present very specific
  problems
• F.i. scribes writing in Old English modified the
  Latin alphabet to reflect OE phonological
  features
• modified letters (æ œ ð)
• new letters (þ ?)
• unused letters (g v) lt- ? f
• Significant variations related to different
  times, places (scriptoria), scribal habits,
  writings

6
Problems in OE character visualization

• ASCII and ISO 8859- miss a good number of
  important characters
• From an HTML page of the DOE corpus
• The corresponding source code
• ltimg src"T04290_files/etail-uppercase.gif"
  align"top" border"0"gtfne swa he cwæde Micel is
  gefea

7
The Unicode Standard

• The Unicode site http//www.unicode.org/
• A universal character encoding standard used for
  representation of text for computer processing
• Fully compatible and synchronized with the
  corresponding versions of International Standard
  ISO/IEC 10646
• Latest major revision 4.1, 5.0 in beta
• 97720 different characters, room for many more
  (about 1 million)
• Universal, efficient, unambiguous
• Characters glyphs distinction

8
The Unicode Standard
9
Characters in an Old English manuscript

• Considerable variation of shapes for the same
  character
• a s y M
• Size variation
• a i e
• Special characters (abbreviations, punctuation)

10
Encoding OE Characters

• Why encode non standard characters
• To allow for paleographical analysis
• To track scribe habits
• To obtain a high quality text-only facsimile
• What to encode
• Not every letter variation is meaningful
• How to encode
• Unicode XML markup MUFI compliant font

11
Entities

• Entities are empty boxes (think about constants
  in programming languages)
• Entities must be declared at the beginning of the
  XML (or, more often, in a separate file)
• lt!ENTITY lows "61735"gt lt!-- low s letter --gt
• lt!ENTITY longs "?"gt lt!-- long, f shaped s letter
  --gt
• They allow for interchange with legacy operating
  systems and platform
• They simplify the handling of special
  characters (and more)

12
TEI P4 and Unicode

• How to use entities
• longs s not very useful
• N.B. entity names are lost forever!!!
• longs ? visualization
• ltc type'longs'gtslt/cgt visualization search
• ... but what about missing characters?

13
TEI P5 and Unicode

• Use the ltggt element in the text
• ... ltg reflows/gt ...
• together with the ltcharDescgt one
• ltcharDescgt
• ltchar idlowsgt
• ltcharNamegtLATIN SMALL LETTER S LOW UNDER THE
  LINElt/charNamegt
• ltcharPropgt
• ltlocalNamegtentitylt/localNamegt
• ltvaluegtlowslt/valuegt
• lt/charPropgt
• ltmapping typestandardizedgtslt/mappinggt
• ltmapping typePUAgtUF127lt/mappinggt
• lt/charDescgt

14
TEI P5 and Unicode

• Another example
• ltcharDescgt
• ltgliph idr1gt
• ltgliphNamegtLATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH
• ONE FUNNY STROKElt/gliphNamegt
• ltcharPropgt
• ltlocalNamegtentitylt/localNamegt
• ltvaluegtr1lt/valuegt
• lt/charPropgt
• ltgraphic urlr1img.png/gt
• lt/gliphgt
• lt/charDescgt

15
Metrical Markup

• Old Germanic meter features
• non isosyllabic
• syllabic quantity not particularly relevant
• long verse composed of two half-lines
• half-lines bound by alliteration
• stress pattern
• No specific solutions in the TEI guidelines
• Several prosodic theories (Sievers to Hoover)
• Stylistic features problems
• Risk of complex, overlapping markup

16
General Structure of Old Germanic Meter

• A markup proposal
• ltlggt
• ltlgt
• lthlgtHwæt! Ic swefna cystlt/hlgt
• lthlgtsecgan wyllelt/hlgt
• lt/lgt
• lt/lggt
• ltlggt (line group) only needed where stanzas occur
  (Deor)
• lthlgt (half line) syntactic sugar for ltseg
  type"halfline"gt
• lthlAgt and lthlBgt not needed

17
Meter encoding v. 1

• A simple method to encode meter using attributes
  of the lthlgt element
• lthlgt
• ltmet name"Sievers" code"D1" scan"//\x"/gt
• ltmet name"Russom" code"x/Sx" scan"x/\x"/gt
• ltmet name"Hoover" code"nAn" scan"xx /\x"/gt
• ...
• HWÆT! WE GARDENA
• lt/hlgt
• Doesn't allow for alternative scansions using the
  same system
• Doesn't take into account syllables (and
  disagreement in syllable counts/stress pattern)

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Meter encoding v. 2

• A more complete (and complex) method
• lthl n"3a"gt
• ltmet system"Sievers" resp"Schwab"
  totalSyllables"5" scansion"D-1" Anacrusis"0"
  Extrametrical"0" Lift"1,2,4" halfLift"3"
  dip"5" allitGlyph"w" allitSound"/w/"
  allitPosition"1,2" /gt
• ltmet system"Sievers" resp"Fulk"
  totalSyllables"4" scansion"D-1" Anacrusis"0"
  Extrametrical"0" Lift"1,2" halfLift"3" dip"4"
  allitGlyph"w" allitSound"/w/"
  allitPosition"1,2" /gt
• weorc wuldorfaeder
• lt/hlgt
• Scansion not associated to the actual text ...

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Meter encoding v. 2

• ... in fact you could take it out of the text
• lthl n"3a" id"CH.3a"gtweorc wuldorfaederlt/hlgt
• ...
• ltmet target"CH.3a" system"Sievers"
  resp"Schwab" totalSyllables"5" scansion"D-1"
  Anacrusis"0" Extrametrical"0" Lift"1,2,4"
  halflift"3" dip"5" AlitGlyph"w"
  allitSound"/w/" Allitposition"1,2" /gt
• ltmet target"CH.3a" system"Sievers" resp"Fulk"
  totalSyllables"4" scansion"D-1" Anacrusis"0"
  Extrametrical"0" Lift"1,2" halflift"3" dip"4"
  AlitGlyph"w" allitSound"/w/" Allitposition"1,2"
  /gt

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Meter encoding v. 2

• To establish a direct connection between scansion
  and text you have to mark syllables
• You could add this to the simple model
• lthlgt
• ltmet name"Russom" scan"/x/xx" sylls"1a.1.1
  1a.1.2 1a.1.3 1a.1.4 1a.1.5" /gt
• ltmet name"Bliss" scan"/\xx" sylls"1a.1.1
  1a.1.3 1a.1.4 1a.1.5"/gt
• ltsyl id1a.1.1gtþeltsyl id"1a.1.2"gtodlt/sylgt
• ltsyl id"1a.1.3"gtcynlt/sylgtltsyl id"1a.1.4"gtinlt/syl
  gtltsyl id"1a.1.5"gtgalt/sylgt
• lt/hlgt

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Meter encoding v. 3

• The most complete (and complex!) method
• ltfvLib id"PS" type"Prosodic Stress"gt
• ltignored id"x"/gt //ignored in scansion
• ltdip id"SO"/gt
• ltdipResolution id"SOR"/gt //second half of
  resolved lift
• lthalfLiftLongPosition id"S1LP"/gt // VCC
• lthalfLiftLongNature id"S1LN"/gt // long Vowel
• lthalfLiftShort id"S1S"/gt
• ltliftLongPosition id"S2LP"/gt // lift long by
  position
• ...
• lt/fvLibgt

22
Meter encoding v. 3

• The Feature Structure looks complex, but need
  only be designed once
• lthl n"3a" id"CH.3a"gtltsyll id"ch3a.1"gtweordlt/syl
  lgt ltsyll id"ch3a.2"gtwullt/syllgtltsyll
  id"ch3a.3"gtdorlt/syllgtltsyll id"ch3a.4"gtfaelt/syllgt
  ltsyll id"ch3a.5"gtderlt/syllgtlt/hlgt
• ....
• ltlinkGrp type"metrical prosody" domains"PS AT
  AP AG T1" targFunc"?"gt
• lt!--...--gt
• ltlink id"L1" targets"ch3a.1 S2LP A1 APW AGW"/gt
• ltlink id"L2" targets"ch3a.2 S2LP A1 APW AGW"/gt
• ...

23
Stylistic features the kenning

• Main element
• ltkenninggt
• Using the ltkenninggt element without further
  markup is the simplest way to markup kenningar in
  a text
• Examples
• ltkenninggtswanradlt/kenninggt
• ltkenninggtbeadoleomalt/kenninggt

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Stylistic features the kenning

• Sub-elements
• ltbwgt base word
• To single out the base word in a kenning
• ltdetgt determinant
• To single out the determinant
• ltrefergt referent
• Explicit markup of the object or person the
  kenning is referred to

25
Stylistic features the kenning

• Attributes
• type specifies the type of kenning
• level specifies the level, i.e. if the kenning
  is hosted/hosting another kenning and its
  position in the hierarchy
• class specifies a general semantic class which
  the kenning belongs to
• func specifies the stylistic function of the
  kenning

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Stylistic features the kenning

• Examples
• ltkenninggt
• ltdetgtbeadolt/detgtltbwgtleomalt/bwgt
• ltrefergtsweordlt/refergt
• lt/kenninggt
• ltkenning level"1"gt
• ltdetgt
• ltkenning level"2"gt
• ltdetgtheofonlt/detgtltbwgtenglalt/bwgtlt/kenninggt
• lt/detgt
• ltbwgtcyninglt/bwgt
• lt/kenninggt

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A Work in Progress...

• Coming soon on the Digital Medievalist site
• http//www.digitalmedievalist.org/
• Collaborative edition on the wiki
• Metrical-markup list for discussion
  (metricalmarkup-l_at_uleth.ca)
• Feel free to ask and/or suggest!

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Conclusion

• The Digital Vercelli Book team
• Federica Goria
• Raffaele Cioffi
• Emilia Di Maio
• Roberto Rosselli Del Turco
• The Metrical Markup team
• Dorothy Carr Porter
• Daniel Paul O'Donnell
• Roberto Rosselli Del Turco