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The Computer and its Role in Classical Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Stanley Ireland
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Extract

Classics and the Computer: one might well be forgiven for dismissing such a phrase as today's equivalent of the ‘oil and vinegar’ of antiquity, those two substances whose refusal to mix was then proverbial. On the level of pure aesthetic appreciation indeed we have to admit that there is little that any statistical study or procedure can contribute. The majesty of Homer or Vergil, the intensity of Greek tragedy, the passion of Sappho, the grandeur of Cicero all make their appeal as much to the heart as they do to the head. Yet for a number of years now the languages of Greece and Rome, like those of more modern times, have been the subject of a growing interest among scholars who have sought to gain, through the application of the computer, both a wider and a deeper understanding of ancient literature and its structure. Classicists indeed have often been in the very forefront of computer application to literature. This is not to say, however, that the computer has in any way diminished the need for the more traditional forms of classical research; the ever growing stream of books and articles of this type should be sufficient answer to any such suggestion.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , April 1976, pp. 40 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1976

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References

NOTES

1. ‘Computers in New Testament Studies’, JThS N.S. 21 (1970), 300 f.

2. ‘The State of Software’, Bulletin of the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (hereafter Bulletin) 3. 1 (1975), 42–4.

3. A bi-monthly newsletter of up-to-date information on developments in the application of computers to classics, available free from Stephen V.F. Waite, Dept. of Classics, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, U.S.A.

4. ‘The Availability of Texts in Machine-Readable Form–Practical Considerations’, Bulletin 3. 1 (1975), 19–23.

5. See, however, Grimal, P., ‘Index et Concordances’, REL 44 (1966), 108–16.Google Scholar

6. A Word Count and Concordance Generator on Atlas. Originally developed by D.B. Russell at the Atlas Computer Lab. in 1967, this program has subsequently undergone modification to include a wider range of operation. In addition to straightforward concordancing COCOA will also produce word counts sorted according to word beginnings or endings or frequency of occurrence, and of key-words occurring within a specified distance of one another. The production of various kinds of concordance as well as morphological studies and the automatic lemmatization of Latin texts has also featured in the work of the Laboratoire d'Analyse Statistique des Langues Anciennes (hereafter LASLA) and is periodically reported in their Revue (also sometimes referred to as the Revue de l'Organisation Internationale pour l'Étude des Langues Anciennes par Ordinateur: RELO). See for instance 1967, 4. 98; 1970, 4. 1–16; REL 45 (1967), 457–84.

7. The relative merits of these methods are discussed by Last, R. W., ‘Publishing Computer Output of Processed Natural Language Texts’, Bulletin 2. 2 (1974), 38–41.Google Scholar

8. Montreal 1971; cf. Mind 77 (1968), 309–25.

9. This hypothesis is in fact not totally undisputed.

10. LASLA Revue (1969), 4. 1–25.

11. Cf. Deane, P., Mind 82 (1973), 113–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Caskey, E. G., CPh 69 (1974), 220–7.Google Scholar

12. See e.g. the series of articles by N.D. Thomson in each fascicle of Bulletin since 1. 3 (1973).

13. Op. cit. 298.

14. LASLA Revue (1969), 4. 31–47.

15. The complete abstract occurs in Computers and the Humanities (hereafter CHum)(1969), 255f.

16. ‘The Spaces in Between: A Multiple Test of Authorship for Greek Writers’, LASLA Revue (1972), 1. 23–77; cf. ‘Elision as an Indicator of Authorship in Greek Writers’, LASLA Revue (1973), 3. 33–56.

17. ‘Approaches to the Analysis of Latin Prose Applied to Cato, Sallust and Livy’, LASLA Revue (1970), 2. 91–120Google Scholar; cf. Janson, T., ‘Word, Syllable, and Letter in Latin’, Eranos 65 (1967), 49–64.Google Scholar

18. ‘Sentence-Length Distributions of Greek Authors‘, Journal of the Royal Statistical Soc. A (1957), 331–46.

19. Cf. Janson, ‘Problems of Measuring Sentence-Length in Classical Texts’, Studia Linguistica 18 (1964), 26–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Ott, W., ‘Metrical Analysis of Latin Hexameter by Computer’, LASLA Revue (1966), 4. 7–24Google Scholar, and (1967), 1. 39–64; Dyer, R. R., ‘Towards Computational Procedures in Homeric Scholarship’Google Scholar, ibid. (1967), 4. 1–47; Greenberg, N. A., ‘Scansion purement automatique de l'hexamètre dactylique’Google Scholar, ibid. (1967), 3. 1–30; Evrard, E., ‘Scansion automatique de l'hexamètre grec’Google Scholar, ibid. (1972), 4. 1–33.

21. ‘Vergil and the Computer: Fourth Foot texture in Aeneid I’, LASLA Revue (1967), 1. 1–16.

22. Cf. Michaelson, and Morton, , ‘The Authorship and Integrity of the Platonic Epistles’, Revue Internationale de pbilosophie (1973), 3–9Google Scholar, where tests involving the use of καί, δέ, γάρ, μέν and ον show that if Plato is defined as the author of the Apology, of the group of letters long enough to provide usable results (i.e. 2, 3, 7, 8, 13) only Epistle 3 does not display significant differences.

23. ‘Key-Words and Poetic Themes in Propertius and Tibullus’, LASLA Revue (1967), 3. 31–79.

24. ‘A Study of the Vocabulary of Vergil's Eclogues’, LASLA Revue (1973), 3. 1–24; ‘Word Frequencies in Latin Literature’, ibid. (1973) 4. 1–17; ‘The World of the Eclogues’, ibid. (1974), 4. 1–24.

25. ‘Thought Clusters in Early Greek Oral Poetry’, CHum (1974), 131–46.

26. TAPhA 104 (1974), 239–60.

27. Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations. See Scanlan, R. T., ‘Computer-Assisted Instruction in Latin’, CJ 66 (1971), 223–7.Google Scholar

28. ‘Teaching Ancient Greek (with the Help of a Computer)’, Bulletin 3. 1 (1975), 45–51.