Metrics Interactive Demo

Interactively query a sample metrical corpus.

Here you can query a small sample corpus to get some idea of the metrical analysis capabilities of this system. The sample corpus consists of a single work, Aratus Phaenomena, counting about one thousand hexameters, which produce about 141,000 observations. Real-world corpora include much more authors and works for several thousands lines, using any verse design.

Quick Instructions

These pages allow you to query this corpus for any combination of all the observed phenomena. To build your query, add one or more clauses to it, connecting them with logical operators. Each clause refers to a single observed phenomenon (e.g. elision, hiatus, metrical laws, wordend positions, etc.); a phenomenon can be positional (when it can occur in several positions in the same line, like hiatus) or not (when it occurs by definition zero or one times for each line: e.g. Hermann's law in the hexameter).

Also, each phenomenon typically has a set of types and each type a set of subtypes: for instance, hiatus can be of type prosodical (+pros) or non-prosodical (-pros); and each type has 6 different subtypes: internal with vocalic aspiration (i+h), internal without vocalic aspiration (i-h), final in false wordend with vocalic aspiration ((ff+h)), final in false wordend without vocalic aspiration (ff-h), final in true wordend with vocalic aspiration (ft+h), final in true wordend without vocalic aspiration (ft-h).

When building your clause you must thus select a phenomenon and optionally specify type, subtype and position: for instance, you might want to see only prosodical, non-internal hiatus after the second longum, and so forth. You are free to select any combination of types, subtypes and positions for each phenomenon, and to combine any number of such clauses in your query.