A Glossarial DataBase of Middle English

Canterbury Tales

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About the Glossarial DataBase of Middle English

All of the material included here was prepared by Prof. Larry Benson as part of a larger Glossarial DataBase of Middle English. It was subsequently marked up according the TEI (P3) Guidelines using the analytical markup section. Considerable work on this version of the DataBase is still necessary, including linking in Prof. Benson's "dictionary" and adding a variety of searches. If you have questions about the collection, please contact dlps-help@umich.edu. If you have concerns about the inclusion of an item in this collection, please contact LibraryIT-Info@umich.edu

A sample line is included below to illustrate the markup of the text.

<DIV0 TYPE="frag" N="Frag1">
<HEAD>Fragment I, CT<HEAD>
<DIV1 TYPE="CT" N="GP">
<HEAD>General Prlogoue </HEAD>
<L N="GP:1">
<W LEMMA="whan" ANA="ADVC">Whan</W>
<W TYPE="gram" LEMMA="that" ANA="CONJ">that</W>
<W LEMMA="april" ANA="NOUN">Aprill</W>
<W LEMMA="with" ANA="PREP">with</W>
<W TYPE="infl" LEMMA="his" ANA="P1GN">his</W>
<W TYPE="infl" LEMMA="shour" ANA="NPL0">shoures</W>
<W LEMMA="sote" ANA="ADJ0">soote</W>
</L>

Type of search

Fulltext
Currently this searches all parts of the word, including descriptive information. A more thorough approach would limit this to the occurring form in the text
Lemma
Restricts search to Lemma form
Analysis
Restricts search to analytical markup (e.g., VERB). (see below)

Language

Some words are marked, using the TEI "lang" attribute, as LAT (Latin), FR (French), or GR (Greek). Remaining words are indexed as English and show in tables as EN.

Form

Words are sometimes marked (using the TEI "type" attribute) as infl (inflected), gram (grammatical), or infl+gram (a combination of both). Most words are not marked for Form. Benson describes grammatical and his practice of markup as:

Grammatical Words

A number of words are labelled "grammatical": e.g. al as an adjective is labelled: al@al_gram#adj. This departs from the usual practice of following the MED's head word (which in this case follows the # rather than the @); it was adopted to prevent syntactic searches for, say, adjective+noun from bringing up this+noun, swich+noun, etc. and to clarify syntactic patterns (@this_gram+@n rather than @adj+@n).

If this proves unsatisfactory it can easily be changed. Note that by no means are all the grammatical words in Chaucer so labelled. This practice was adopted only for those words that were numerous enough and used often enough as nouns and adjectives to interfere with searches for combinations of fully semantic words.

The following words are labelled "grammatical":

al ani another ech everi ilke mani no non other same som swich that these thilke this tho tother what which

Analysis

Codes used for the ana attribute on each word are listed below. In some cases, the prose description from Prof. Benson is provided. In other cases, his code (e.g., adv#interj is provided instead. Parenthetical numbers indicate the number of occurrences in the Caterbury Tales for this characteristic.

A1NS
Adj. as noun superlative (14)
ABBR
Abbrev. (3)
ADJ1
Adj. 1 (283)
ADJ2
Adj. 2 (192)
ADJ3
Adj. 3 (46)
ADJ0
Adj. (13,114)
ADJC
Adj. comparative (350)
ADJE
Exclam. adj. (1)
ADJI
Interj. adj (1)
ADJN
Adj. as noun (262)
ADJP
Adj. as prep. (4)
ADJS
Adj. superlative (13)
ADJV
Adj. as Adv. (10)
ADV1
Adv. 1
ADV2
Adv. 2
ADV0
Adverb (14,346)
ADVC
Adverb as conjunction (1,545)
ADVI
adv#interj
ADVJ
adv#adj
ADVN
adv#n
ADVP
adv#prep
ADVS
adv%sup
AJ2C
adj%comp
AJ1N
adj1as_n
AJ1S
adj1%sup
AJNP
adj#n%pl (undocumented)
AJNS
adj#n%sup (undocumented)
AJPL
adj%pl (undocumented)
AV-J
advas_adj
CNJ1
conj1
CONJ
Conjunction (18,489)
DEFA
Def. article (5161)
G1PL
ger1%pl
G2PL
ger2%pl
GER1
ger1
GER2
ger2
GER3
ger3
GER0
ger
GERA
ger#adj
GRPL
ger%pl
IDFA
Indef. article (3211)
IN12
interj1+2
INTJ
interj
INTN
interj#n
JVNC
adj+advas_n%comp
N1AJ
n1#adj
N2AJ
n2#adj
N5AJ
n5#adj
N1GN
n1%gen
N2GN
n2%gen
N3GN
n3%gen
N5GN
n5%gen
N1IN
n1#interj
N1NG
n1#propn%gen
N2NG
n2#propn%gen
N2NO
n2#nonsense
N1PG
n1%pl_gen
N1PL
n1%pl
N2PL
n2%pl
N3PL
n3%pl
N4PL
n4%pl
N6PL
n6%pl
NADJ
n#adj
NADV
n#adv
NAPL
n#adj%pl (undocumented)
NGAB
n%gen_abs
NGEN
n%gen
NINT
n#interj
NNON
n#nonsense
NOU1
Noun 1 (2,801)
NOU2
Noun 2 (1,115)
NOU3
Noun 3 (201)
NOU4
Noun 4 (39)
NOU6
Noun 6 (13)
NOU8
Noun 8 (10)
NOUN
Noun (22,923)
NPL0
Noun, plural (3,787)
NPLG
n%pl_gen
NPRG
n#propn%gen
NPRP
n#propn%pl
NSUP
n%sup
NUAJ
num#adj
NUAV
num#adv
NUM0
num
NUMA
num_arab
NUMC
num#conj
NUMN
num#n
NUMR
num_rom
P1FG
pron1%fem_gen
P2FI
pron2%fem_obj_indef
P2FJ
pron2%fem_obj_adj
P2FO
pron2%fem_obj
P1GN
Pronoun 1, gen. (3,029)
P2GN
Pronoun 2, gen.
P1IN
pron1%indef
P1NM
pron1%non
P2OJ
pron2%obj
P2PL
pron2%pl
PR1J
pron1#adj
PART
V. Participle (2,197)
PN1I
n1#propn_interj
PN4J
n4#propn_interj
PNAJ
n#propn_adj
PPAB
ppl%abs
PPAJ
ppl#adj
PPJN
ppl#adj_n
PPL0
ppl
PRAB
prp%abs
PRAJ
prep#adj
PRAV
prep#adv
PRCO
prep#conj
PRCT
pron%contr (undocumented)
PREP
prep
PRGA
pron%gen_abs
PRGN
pron%gen
PRIN
pron%indef
PRN1
n1#propn
PRN2
n2#propn
PRN3
n3#propn
PRN4
n4#propn
PRN5
n5#propn
PRN6
n6#propn
PRN7
n7#propn
PRN8
n8#propn
PRNM
Pron. nom. (4,521)
PRNO
Prop. noun (2,159(
PROJ
Pron. obj. (1,694)
PRON
Pron. (6,883)
PRP2
prep2
PRPG
pron%pl_gen
PRPJ
prp#adj
PRPL
pron%pl (undocumented)
PRPN
pron%pl_non
PRPO
pron%pl_obj
V1IM
v1%imp
V2IM
v2%imp
V3IM
v3%imp
V4IM
v4%imp
V1IN
Verb, infin. (1,651)
V2IN
v2%inf
V3IN
v3%inf
V4IN
v4%inf
V8IN
v8%inf
V1JP
v1#adj%ppl (undocumented)
V2JP
v2#adj%ppl (undocumented)
V1JR
v1#adj%prp (undocumented)
V2JR
v2#adj%prp (undocumented)
V1PA
v1%prp_abs
V2PA
v2%prp_abs
V3PA
v3%prp_abs
V4PA
v4%prp_abs
V1PE
v1%prp
V1PL
v1%pr_pl
V2PL
v2%pr_pl
V3PL
v3%pr_pl
V4PL
v4%pr_pl
V1PN
v1%pr_neg
V1PP
v1%pr_pron
V2PP
v2%pr_pron
V3PP
v3%pr_pron
V4PP
v4%pr_pron
V1PR
v1%pr
V2PR
v2%pr
V3PR
v3%pr
V4PR
v4%pr
V1PT
v1%pt_pl
V2PT
v2%pt_pl
V3PT
v3%pt_pl
V4PT
v4%pt_pl
V1TN
v1%pt_neg
V1TR
v1%pt_pron
V12I
v1+2%inf
V12L
v1+2%pr_pl
V12P
v1+2%ppl
V12R
v1+2%pr
VAJP
v#adj%ppl (undocumented)
VAJR
v#adj%prp (undocumented)
VAVR
v#adv%prp (undocumented)
VERB
Verb (30)
VIM0
v%imp
VINF
v%inf
VPPA
v%ppl_abs
VPPL
v%ppl
VPPN
v%pr_pl_neg
VPPR
v%pr_pron
VPR0
Verb pres. sing. (7,462)
VPRA
v%prp_abs
VPRL
Verb pres. plur. (1,760)
VPRN
v%pr_neg
VPRP
v%prp
VPT0
Verb preterite sing. (6,000)
VPTL
v%pt_pl
VPTN
v%pt_neg
VTLN
v%pt_pl_neg
VTPR
v%pt_pron