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Abstract

In today’s landscape of language technology, dominated by large language models, tasks like part-of-speech tagging and lemmatisation receive less attention in current NLP research. However, these tasks still pose significant challenges, especially for under-resourced, morphologically rich languages like Ancient Greek. Our project focuses on the verbatim transcriptions of Byzantine marginal poetry stored in the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams (DBBE). Due to the highly interconnected nature of the poems, we aim to eventually perform similarity detection across the corpus. As a first step, we sought to annotate the DBBE with part-of-speech tags, morphological analyses, and lemmas. Although research on these tasks dates back to more straightforward rule-based systems from the 1970s, current taggers struggle with these unedited texts. The inconsistent orthography — largely due to itacism — adds to this complexity. To mitigate these issues, we trained a transformer-based language model encompassing classical, medieval, and modern Greek. Our experiments, however, revealed that fine-tuning the model for each annotation task was not always fruitful. There is a growing tendency to address such challenges with a multi-task head, allowing the model to process multiple annotations concurrently, drawing inspiration from cognitive psychology. This raises the question: will this more intricate solution outshine the seemingly more transparent methods of the past?

Practical information

This lecture will be given at the Computational Humanities Research Group Seminar Series, organised by the Department of Digital Humanities of King’s College London.

Date & time: Tuesday 10 December 2024, 4:00 pm

Location: Bush House, Strand Campus (30 Aldwych, London) & online

More information about this conference and the full programme can be found here.

Abstract

Formulaicity is a widely discussed concept in the study of historical Greek, primarily due to the influence of the Homeric epics, where it is traditionally understood to arise from oral contexts where formulaic sequences reduce processing effort during lengthy recitations. Besides that, formulaic language also appears in entirely written contexts, such as post-classical Greek administrative and legal documents, where high standardisation meets the need of accuracy and efficiency (see e.g. Nachtergaele 2023; Saradi 2019). The corpus I focus on, Byzantine book epigrams — short, metrical texts found in the margins of Byzantine manuscripts — presents a unique case. These paratexts, embedded in the medieval manuscript tradition, blend literary and documentary functions without any oral performance context, oscillating between practical precision and creative expression. This paper explores a methodological challenge in studying formulaic language within historical Greek corpora, focusing specifically on the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams.

Even recent comprehensive research on Homer’s formulaic language (Bozzone 2024) relies on modern editions of the Homeric epics that attempt to reconstruct an ‘archetype’ based on medieval manuscript ‘witnesses’. In contrast, the DBBE diverges from strict adherence to traditional editorial practices by presenting epigrams preserving all original scribal choices (‘Occurrences’) while also offering ‘normalised’ versions (‘Types’) that group similar instances of the originals (Ricceri et al. 2023). This raises questions: To what extent can we rely on edited texts to analyse formulaicity? How might editorial choices, driven by the desire for a cohesive text, obscure the original variability of formulaic sequences? Does the interaction between formulaicity and editorial practices facilitate research, or does this create the impression of greater fixedness in formulae, potentially skewing certain aspects of the analysis?

This paper explores the potential impact of editorial intervention on formulaicity research, advocating for a more flexible methodology that balances the use of both edited and original sources. Through a case study on supplications for salvation within a subset of the DBBE corpus, I will demonstrate how formulaic expressions function in this hybrid referential-poetic (cf. Jacobson 1960) context, and how editorial practices may shape our understanding of formulaicity. Ultimately, this study seeks to position this material within the broader framework of formulaicity research and to discuss the implications of editorial practices for linguistic research in historical corpora.

Practical information

This lecture will be given at the conference ‘Formulaic Language in Historical Linguistics: data, methods, tools, and theory’, organised by the Academy of Finland project “The learning of Latin in the 8th to 12th century: a linguistic approach to medieval Latin literacies” in collaboration with the Classical Philological Society of Finland.

Date & time: to be confirmed

Location: Tieteiden talo (Kirkkokatu 6, Helsinki, Finland)

More information about this conference and the full programme can be found here.

Abstract

Antique literature survived thanks to scribes painstakingly copying texts from one manuscript to the other, prior to the art of printing. Occasionally, these scribes added metrical paratexts to the manuscripts, i.e. texts standing next to the main text (Genette, 1987) and introduced in Byzantine scholarship by Lauxtermann (2003) as book epigrams. Ghent University’s Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams (Ricceri et al., 2023) stores more than 12,000 of such epigrams, being verbatim transcriptions precisely as they are found in the manuscripts. This entails that the Greek of these epigrams is interspersed with orthographic inconsistencies, mainly due to phonetic changes like the itacism. These verbatim transcriptions are called occurrences and are grouped under one or more so-called types, a readable representation of its occurrences in standardised, classical Greek. Eventually, we aim to develop a dynamic system to group hemistichs, verses and epigrams based on distinct similarity measures in order for scholars to find all kinds of similar texts instead of only the ones that pop up in their mind. While developing those similarity measures, just like any other algorithm, evaluation is an essential part of the development process. However, a gold standard for the evaluation of verse similarity measures does not exist. At this point, we already conducted a pilot study on pairwise annotation of 2 verses with 10 annotators. Each verse was set off alongside six pairs of verses, of which the annotator had to mark the most similar one in their opinion. The inter-annotator agreement (IAA) yielded an agreement score of 57.69%, which is seen as a moderate agreement (Landis & Koch, 1977). This agreement score is the arithmetic mean of the agreement between each pair of annotators, as all annotators annotated the exact same set of verses. Despite the rather modest size of this pilot study, it is possible to unravel the distinct lines of reasoning of the annotators. They did not receive detailed instructions for the annotation process, because of which every annotator was free to have their own focal point. The most remarkable of those focal points was the metre. One of the annotators based their judgement on the amount of syllables a verse counts. The majority, however, seemed to take syntax as a decisive factor to determine the most similar verse; semantics were only deciding, if the syntax of both options was identical. While the gold standard is being annotated, we already started computing similarity between words. These similarities will, in a next stage, be used to compute similarity between (half) verses. The main goal of the experiment is to find out whether transformer embeddings take into account enough context to find identical or similar words with deviant orthography.

Practical information

This lecture will be given at the ‘Computational Approaches to Ancient Greek and Latin Workshop’, organised by KU Leuven and the University of Groningen. This workshop series started in 2021 with the aim of further exploring the potential of computational approaches (Natural Language Processing) applied to Ancient Greek and Latin. The 2024 edition will be held hybridly on November 28th and 29th, 2024.

Date & time: Friday 29 November 2024, 13:45-14:30

Location: KU Leuven: Mgr. Sencie Instituut (Erasmusplein 2, 3000 Leuven, Belgium) & online

Register via this link. Registration for in-person attendance is not possible anymore. The deadline for registration for online attendance is 27 November 2024.

More information about this conference and the full programme can be found here.

This lecture will be given at the 8th International Byzantine Seminar Lecture Series (2024) on “Digital Methods for Byzantine Studies”, organised by the Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations at the Northeast Normal University in Changchun (China), in collaboration with the Department og Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Cologne and the Department of Historical and Classical Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Date & time: Thursday 21 November 2024, 11:00 am (CET)

Location: online via Zoom

Registration is free, but required. The Zoom link will be provided upon registration. To register or for more information, email with “IBSLS Registration” to liq762@hotmail.com.

Abstract

Byzantine book epigrams, featuring as paratexts in manuscript margins, seamlessly intertwine poetic expression with practical details, illuminating aspects such as the manuscripts’ patrons and the identities of the scribes involved in transcription. Although deeply rooted in traditional book production practices and very formulaic in nature, these epigrams present noteworthy linguistic variation. While their formulaicity has been acknowledged, a thorough exploration of the formulaic sequences present in the Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams (DBBE) or similar corpora remains a gap in current research. My research, to be conducted on the well-established DBBE corpus, acts as a bridge between linguistic research on formulas inherent in everyday speech and those studied within the context of oral poetry.

This interdisciplinary project, adopting a corpus-driven approach, seeks to combine close-reading along with digital methods for navigating a vast corpus of Byzantine book epigrams. This research addresses the challenge of identifying formulaic constructions (i.e. pairings of form and meaning in the context of Construction Grammar) that function as “verse building blocks” and their variation within a historical linguistic corpus that combines poetic expression and practical information. However, the digital journey of pattern identification encounters challenges arising from inherent complexities of Greek – from flexible syntax to extensive morphological variety – compounded by great linguistic variation across registers, ranging from Homeric and classicizing Greek to medieval forms interwoven with vernacular elements. The absence of critical texts for numerous epigrams further complicates matters, preserving the idiosyncrasies of original scribal choices on the one hand, but impeding uniformization for digital analysis on the other.

This presentation serves to illuminate the challenges inherent in working on Byzantine paratextual material in the Digital Humanities context of a project that endeavours to unravel the intricate linguistic nuances within Byzantine book epigrams, displaying commitment to deeper understand the complexities inherent in the intersection of Byzantine literature and Digital Humanities.

Practical information

This lecture will be given at the international workshop ‘The Impact of Digital Methods and Approaches on Ancient Studies Research‘ (13-14 May 2024, Berlin).

Date & time: Monday 13 May 2024, 4:40 pm

Location: Freie Universität Berlin (Hittorfstraße 18, 14195 Berlin)

 

More information about this workshop and the full programme can be found here.

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between Byzantine metrical paratexts, also known as book epigrams, and the biblical text found in Gospel-Books and Lectionaries from medieval Southern Italy.

In the field of New Testament textual scholarship, recent years have witnessed an increased interest in aspects of manuscripts that extend beyond their textual content. Scholars now recognize that insights gained from studying scribal corrections and paratextual features help us to understand how texts were transmitted and received in historical contexts (Lanier-Han, 2021).

Despite this considerable shift in New Testament studies, Byzantine book epigrams and their affiliation to the biblical text remain an intriguing and less-explored domain. These paratexts represent an interesting research object for philologists and historians studying the manuscript tradition of the Greek New Testament. Often copied alongside the main text, book epigrams can help to establish genealogies between manuscripts. Moreover, they offer relevant information on the communities writing and reading these books.

Specifically, my research will consider the following questions:

1. What kind of book epigrams can be found in Gospel-Books and Lectionaries produced in medieval Southern Italy? Are they original compositions or just conventional formulas?
2. Do the metrical paratexts reveal specific regional and cultural influences? And how do they differ from Gospel-Books and Lectionaries from other regions?
3. Are there thematic correlations between book epigrams and biblical text?
4. Which reading strategies do the book epigrams prescribe?
5. what is the relation between the chain of transmission of the metrical paratexts and that of the main texts?

This study will focus on a corpus of Byzantine book epigrams found in a selected group of Gospel-Books and Lectionaries produced in Southern Italy (10th-13th century). The combination of cultural exploration and examination of textual and extratextual features presents a model for integrating various disciplines to enrich our understanding of New Testament manuscript tradition.

Practical information

This lecture will be given at the international CSNTM Text & Manuscript Conference ‘Intersection. Interdisciplinary Approaches to New Testament Text and Manuscript Studies‘, organised by the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts in Plano (Texas).

The “Intersection” theme aims to explore how the many disciplines of the study of ancient Christian documents (paleography, art history, exegesis, paratext, linguistics, conservation, etc.) collaborate to help us better understand their content.

Date & time: Thursday 30 May 2024, 10:55 pm

Location: The Marriott at Legacy Town Center (7121 Bishop Rd Plano, TX 75024)

 

More information about this conference and the full programme can be found here.