Project

Discipline

Latin language; Diachrony ; Digital Humanities; Lexical markers ; Modal pathways; Corpus-based approach; Literary sources ; Documentary sources ; Modality; Historical linguistics

Lead
En linguistique la modalité exprime l'attitude d'un locuteur à l’égard du contenu d'une proposition. Certains contenus peuvent être présentés comme une possibilité (Pour aller à la gare, tu peux prendre le bus 66) ou comme une nécessité (Pour aller à la gare, il faut que tu prennes le bus 66) génériques. D'autres contenus peuvent être présentés comme des nécessités morales (Il faut que tu termines tes devoirs avant d'aller jouer). Le contenu d'une proposition peut aussi être présenté comme plus ou moins probable (Marc doit être déjà rentré chez lui. Je ne vois plus son vélo). "Pouvoir", "falloir", "devoir" sont des marqueurs modaux lexicaux. Le but principal du projet de recherche "A World of Possibility" est de reconstruire l'histoire des marqueurs modaux lexicaux de la langue latine.
Lay summary
Les études sur la diachronie de la modalité se sont concentrées en particulier sur la langue anglaise et ses auxiliaires verbaux (must, shall, etc.) À travers mon projet sur l'évolution de la modalité dans la langue latine je veux non seulement offrir un deuxième point de référence, mais aussi élargir l'étude aux autres parties du discours : les substantifs, les adjectifs et les adverbes. Dans une première phase, l'équipe analysera les passages modaux repérés dans un corpus de textes latins datant du 3ème siècle av. n.-è. jusqu'au 7ème siècle. Non seulement les sources littéraires, mais aussi les sources documentaires (inscriptions, papyrus) seront prises en considération. Ensuite, tous les passages modaux seront décrits grâce à des schémas d'annotation en langage XML-TEI spécifiquement élaborés pour cette tâche par l'équipe. Ces passages avec leur description alimenteront une base de données qui sera mise en ligne en libre accès. Enfin, l'ensemble du matériel analysé permettra à l'équipe de reconstruire l'évolution des marqueurs modaux et de leurs emplois à travers les siècles. Ces résultats seront utiles pour tester les théories courantes autour de la diachronie de la modalité et les affiner ou corriger. Les résultats du projet seront diffusés à travers des publications (base de données, monographies, articles, etc.), mais aussi à travers un colloque autour de la modalité dans une perspective interdisciplinaire qui se déroulera parallèlement à une exposition conçue pour un public plus large.  Le projet de recherche soulève un questionnement, à savoir l'évolution des marqueurs modaux, qui est d'intérêt pour la recherche en linguistique au-delà du cas spécifique du latin. Il offrira donc un modèle pour l'analyse diachronique d'autres langues, anciennes comme modernes. Aussi les schémas d'annotations seront élaborés de manière à pouvoir s'adapter à d'autres langues. En ce qui concerne plus spécifiquement la langue latine, le projet, grâce à sa perspective élargie sur la modalité, comblera une lacune dans l'étude de cette langue et constituera un point de départ incontournable pour l'étude de la transition du latin aux langues romanes.

Direct link to Lay Summary

Last update: 27.11.2018

Sample of the WoPoss corpus

Author	Dell'Oro, Francesca; Bermúdez Sabel, Helena; Marongiu, Paola; Raymond, Séverine
Publication date	28.07.2022
Persistent Identifier (PID)	10.5281/zenodo.6925274
Repository	Zenodo
Abstract

Sample of the WoPoss corpus annotated by the annotators of the WoPoss team (for a more precise responsibility description, see each file). The sample contains the following works: Octavius by M. Minucius Felix:Text provided by Perseus Digital Library, with funding from The Mellon Foundation. Original version available for viewing and download at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/. Text retrieved from: http://data.perseus.org/texts/urn:cts:latinLit:stoa0203.stoa001.perseus-lat1. Original printed edition: Tertullian Apology - De spectaculis - Minucius Felix Octavius. Translated by T.R. Glover & William Heinemann. Harvard University Press: London; Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1931.Reference edition: Minucius Felix, Marcus. Octavius. Edited by Bernhard Kytzler. Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. 1992.Metamorphoses (First book) by P. Ovidius Naso:Text provided by Perseus Digital Library, with funding from The Mellon Foundation. Original version available for viewing and download at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/. Text retrieved from: http://data.perseus.org/texts/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0959.phi006.perseus-lat1. Original printed edition: Ovid. Metamorphoses. Edited by Hugo Magnus. Gotha, Germany: F.A. Perthes. 1892.Reference edition: P. Ovidi Nasonis Metamorphoses. Edited by Richard Tarrant. Oxford Classical Texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2004.Satyricon by G. Petronius Arbiter:Text provided by Perseus Digital Library, with funding from The Mellon Foundation. Original version available for viewing and download at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/. Text retrieved from: http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:latinLit:phi0972.phi001.perseus-lat1:1. Original printed edition: Petronius Arbiter. Petronius. Edited by Michael Heseltine. London: William Heinemann. 1913.Reference edition: Petronius Arbitrer. Satyricon reliquiae. Edited by Konrad Müller. Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. 2004.De spectaculis by Q. S. F. Tertullianus:Text provided by Perseus Digital Library, with funding from The Mellon Foundation. Original version available for viewing and download at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/. Text retrieved from: http://data.perseus.org/texts/urn:cts:latinLit:stoa0275.stoa027. Original printed edition: Tertullian Apology - De spectaculis - Minucius Felix Octavius. Translated by T.R. Glover & William Heinemann. Harvard University Press: London; Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1931.Reference edition: Tertullianus, Quintus Septimius Florens. Les spectacles = (De spectaculis). Sources chrétiennes no 332. Paris: Les Editions du Cerf. 1986.Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus:Text provided by Epigraphic Database Rome (EDR). Record: EDR169402, 24-04-2021 (Annarosa GALLO) http://www.edr-edr.it/edr_programmi/res_complex_comune.php?do=book&id_nr=EDR169402. Based on the edition: Gallo, Annarosa, “Senatus consulta de Bacchanalibus. Normenpluralität in der Tafel von Tiriolo und in der livianischen Überlieferung” in Die senatus consulta in den epigraphischen Quellen. Texte und Bezeugungen edited by Pierangelo Buongiorno and Giuseppe Camodeca. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. 2021, pp. 107-145.How to citeTo cite single files or the results related to single files, please use the following format:Octavius by M. Minucius Felix. How to cite: Dell’Oro, Francesca; Reymond, Séverine; Bermúdez Sabel, Helena (2022). Octavius by M. Minucius Felix annotated according to the WoPoss guidelines. Swiss National Science Foundation.Metamorphoses (First book) by P. Ovidius Naso. How to cite: Dell’Oro, Francesca; Bermúdez Sabel, Helena (2022). First book of the Metamorphoses by P. Ovidius Naso annotated according to the WoPoss guidelines. Swiss National Science Foundation.Satyricon by G. Petronius Arbiter. How to cite: Dell’Oro, Francesca; Marongiu, Paola; Bermúdez Sabel, Helena (2022). Satyricon by G. Petronius Arbiter annotated according to the WoPoss guidelines. Swiss National Science Foundation.De spectaculis by Q. S. F. Tertullianus. How to cite: Dell’Oro, Francesca; Reymond, Séverine; Bermúdez Sabel, Helena (2022). De spectaculis by Q. S. F. Tertullianus annotated according to the WoPoss guidelines. Swiss National Science Foundation.Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus. How to cite: Dell’Oro, Francesca; Bermúdez Sabel, Helena (2022). Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus annotated according to the WoPoss guidelines. Swiss National Science Foundation.To cite the project and/or website as a whole please use the following format:Francesca Dell’Oro, dir., WoPoss. A corpus to analyse the evolution of modality in the diachrony of the Latin language, Swiss National Science Foundation [https://woposs.unine.ch/].

Interactive diachronic maps of the WoPoss modal markers

Author	Marongiu, Paola; Dell'Oro, Francesca
Publication date	21.01.2021
Persistent Identifier (PID)	10.5281/zenodo.5735624
Repository	Zenodo
Abstract

In this dataset the user will find a collection of 75 interactive diachronic maps of the lexical modal markers analyzed in the framework of the WoPoss project (https://woposs.unine.ch/). The drawing of the maps is based on the descriptions of the lemmas in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, combined with the personal analysis of the relevant Latin passages carried out by the authors. As the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae is still under construction, for the lemmas nolo, (ne)queo, usus, valeo, volo and voluntas we relied on the Oxford Latin Dictionary. The maps are in json format and can be visualized on the Pygmalion platform at https://woposs.unine.ch/diachronic-visualisations.html#maps. More detailed information is provided in the README file.

Active participation

Self-organised

Communication	Title	Media	Place	Year

Title	Year

Software

There has been much lively discussion about the diachrony of modality since the 1980s (Ziegeler 2016). The investigation conducted on modal verbs in the Germanic languages, especially English, has shown beyond any doubt that languages with a good amount of available written history are fundamental in reconstructing the diachronic pathways of modality and support the panchronic approach adopted for less well-documented or less studied languages (e.g. Bybee - Perkins - Pagliuca 1994). Nevertheless, diachronic research needs to open to other lexical markers (cf. Van linden 2012 for English modal adjectives) as well as to other possible benchmarks of comparison by taking advantage of well-documented languages. The main aim of my project is to perform the first large-scope analysis of modalisation paths in Latin, a language whose documented history spans over many centuries and offers a wide-ranging variety of written sources. In contrast with mainstream research on lexical markers expressing modality, my project focuses not only on verbs (e.g. possum ‘have power, be able’) but also on adjectives (e.g. the adjectives in -bilis), nouns (e.g. necessitas ‘unavoidableness’) and adverbs (e.g. sentence adverbs such as quidem ‘undoubtedly’) offering a comprehensive approach to the Latin lexical modal system. Since the diachronic study of lexical modality is an emerging field of contemporary linguistic research, the absence of monograph-length studies on the evolution of the Latin lexical modal system and the inadequacy of most Latin dictionaries in tracing the polysemy of modal forms are by no way surprising. The only feasible way to reconstruct modal pathways and concurrence mechanisms among modal forms in the history of Latin is therefore to adopt a corpus-based approach. In order to gain a broad overview of the evolution of modality based on a thorough description of modal readings and uses at the synchronic level, a corpus of texts chosen according to sociolinguistic criteria is mandatory. The relevant passages will be analysed and then annotated using the XML-TEI language: dedicated annotation schemes will be developed. Teamwork will allow not only the collection of a valuable amount of data, but also the interaction of interdisciplinary competences. The ideal team is composed of a principal investigator with the function of coordinator, a doctoral student in Latin linguistics and an expert in Computational Linguistics at post-doctoral level. Our main tasks will be the analysis and annotation of the corpus as well as the dissemination and updating of data and results through an online database. This effort will make a huge amount of data on lexical modal markers and their uses manageable. We will glean first-hand material from this data for collaborative and/or personal research. The last year of the grant will focus on the preparation of a cutting-edge monograph, opening new perspectives for describing and explaining the diachronic paths of modality. The PhD candidate will present his/her thesis. The online database, working on annotation schemes elaborated to guarantee maximum interoperability, will permit discussion at international level with teams working on modality in other languages. It will be released as an open access resource by the end of the project. In the investigation of pre-modal and post-modal meanings, Indo-Europeanists and Romance linguists will be privileged interlocutors. The results will be also disseminated through a two-fold event: a convention and an exhibition. On the one hand, through the exhibition, linguists, literature specialists of various languages, philosophers and cognitive scientists will present the views of their discipline on modality and possible worlds in an interdisciplinary frame to a non-scientific public. On the other hand, the team will have the possibility to present and discuss its achievements to the scientific community through a conference. Once completed, this project will therefore offer a model for analysing the diachrony of modality in other languages.