Language and Chronology

Text Dating by Machine Learning
Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-90-04-41003-9
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 84, 184 Seiten, Format (B × H): 160 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 408 g

Reihe: Language and Computers

In Language and Chronology, Toner and Han apply innovative Machine Learning techniques to the problem of the dating of literary texts. Many ancient and medieval literatures lack reliable chronologies which could aid scholars in locating texts in their historical context. The new machine-learning method presented here uses chronological information gleaned from annalistic records to date a wide range of texts. The method is also applied to multi-layered texts to aid the identification of different chronological strata within single copies.

While the algorithm is here applied to medieval Irish material of the period c.700-c.1700, it can be extended to written texts in any language or alphabet. The authors’ approach presents a step change in Digital Humanities, moving us beyond simple querying of electronic texts towards the production of a sophisticated tool for literary and historical studies.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Toner, Gregory

Han, Xiwu

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Historische & Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, Sprachtypologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Computerlinguistik, Korpuslinguistik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

List of Illustrations

Abbreviations

Introduction

0.1 Automated Dating Methods

0.1 How to Read This Book

1 Dating Texts: Principles and Methods
1.1 Introduction

1.2 Texts by Known Authors

1.3 Internal Evidence

1.4 Manuscripts

1.5 Intertextuality

1.6 Metrics

1.7 Linguistic Dating

1.8 Conclusion

2 Computational Approaches to Text Dating

2.1 A Brief History

2.2 The Problem Stated

2.3 Previous Solutions

2.4 New Solutions

2.5 Datability

2.6 Conclusion

3 Trials in English and Medieval Irish Texts

3.1 Dating English Texts

3.2 Dating Medieval Irish Texts

3.3 Implementation

3.4 Temporal Parameters

3.5 Datability

3.6 Conclusion

4 Dating Long Documents

4.0 Introduction

4.1 Building a Datable Medieval Irish Corpus

4.2 Dating Long Documents

4.3 Establishing the Date of Composition

4.4 Transmission and Manuscript Dates

4.5 Focussed Dating Predictions

4.6 Periodization

4.7 Stratification

4.8 Conclusion

Conclusion

5.1 A Temporal Model

5.2 Towards a Tool: Computational Chronometrics

5.3 Applicability to Other Literatures

Appendix A: Conventional Dating of Texts Used in This Study

A.1 Texts

Appendix B: Machine Learning

B.1 Classification, Regression and Clustering

B.2 Other Relevant Statistics

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Gregory Toner is Professor of Irish at Queen’s University, Belfast. He has published widely on medieval Irish literature and language and is editor of the electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language.

Xiwu Han, Ph.D. (2006), Harbin Institute of Technology, China, has published numerous peer-reviewed articles on computational linguistics and machine translation.