Estimating Distances between Manuscripts Based on Copying Errors.
Many stemmatological methods require estimates of pairwise distances between manuscripts, where distance is some measure of the number of changes that have occurred during copying along the path linking the two manuscripts. If a pair of manuscripts are separated from their common ancestor by more th...
| Published in: | Literary & Linguistic Computing Vol. 16; no. 4; pp. 467 - 485 |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Nov2001
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=44626936&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 44626936 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 02681145 BJ1 jtl: Literary & Linguistic Computing issn: 02681145 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Nov2001 vid: 16 iid: 4 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 44626936 10.1093/llc/16.4.467 ppf: 467 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 167KB tig: atl: Estimating Distances between Manuscripts Based on Copying Errors. aug: au: Spencer, Matthew Howe, Christopher J. affil: University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK su: Manuscripts Books Bibliography Nonbook materials Illumination of books & manuscripts Errors Literary errors & blunders sug: subj: Manuscripts Books Bibliography Nonbook materials Illumination of books & manuscripts Errors Literary errors & blunders ab: Many stemmatological methods require estimates of pairwise distances between manuscripts, where distance is some measure of the number of changes that have occurred during copying along the path linking the two manuscripts. If a pair of manuscripts are separated from their common ancestor by more than one copy, more than one change may have occurred at some locations in the text, and the observed distance between two manuscripts may underestimate the actual number of changes. We derive a simple estimate of the actual number of changes given the observed number of changes, using a mathematical model for copying errors. This estimate is little affected by the size of the lexicon, the average rate at which copying errors are made, and the number of words for which a given word might be mistaken. Variation in error rates among scribes has no effect, and variation in error rates among words is probably unimportant. We recommend the routine use of this formula. However, variation in error rates among locations in the text can strongly affect the relationships between observed and actual distances. Such variation might easily arise in poetry because of the constraints of rhyme. Two priorities for future work are testing the underlying model for copying errors, and determining patterns of variation in error rates among locations. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: © 2019 EADH: The European Association for Digital Humanities. item: Literary & Linguistic Computing holder: Oxford University Press / USA dt: @attributes: year: 2001 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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