|
|
Text processing
|
Text editing is based on the information and standards given in the printed edition. The headers in each text, including the information about authors and translators, point out the differences between the manuscripts: description, status, cataloguing and dating. Thanks to Bonaparte's correspondence with his collaborators, it is often easy to gather the information about the transmission of the manuscripts and the linguistic reasons that motivated him to commission the creation and translation of these documents.
Because of the information that the documents and aspects linked to the chronology of the manuscripts provide, a conservative edition has been created in attention to the interest of the linguists and dialectologists. Changes referring to the texts are always justified either in the introduction or in the footnotes.
In general, it is not difficult to interpret the spelling encountered in the documents, as they belong to the XVIII and XIX centuries and therefore, they show similarities with the current spelling system. On the other hand, in many cases, taking into account the dialectological purposes of text production and translation, there is a clear intention of annotating sounds, as Bonaparte himself gave instructions in this matter. In some other cases, graphic alternations are important as they may be indicating a process of dephonologisation or phonetic polymorphism, or even a change in articulation within the dialect or sub-dialect. Therefore, the spelling in the original manuscripts has been kept, giving an interpretation of them in footnotes.
Punctuation has been updated under a very restrictive criterion, which, in many cases, was absolutely indispensable in order to read the texts properly, or even to interpret them, since there were many texts almost with no punctuation at all. Other punctuation signs, such as question and exclamation marks and the use of capital letters, have been used coherently, following the current punctuation rules of the Basque language.
Joining and separating words has been the greatest change made in this tagged edition. Consequently, some interesting linguistic information may have been lost but these adaptations have been carried out in order to meet the requirements established by semi-automatic word processing.
Nonetheless, the original texts suffered minimum minor changes. The most general criteria, mostly followed, without the intention of covering the whole great variety of occurrences, were the following:
- The elements that compound noun and verb phrases have been divided: "andi vatequi", "gorpuz bat", "guciz poderoso", "aldi contan", "ecun cion", "sinisten cia?" even in those cases where due to the influence of the first element, phonetic changes come about: "ein tzacie", "izan tzeleic", "erran zquizu".
- Morphosyntactic elements, such as "nai, bear, bait, baino" have also been separated: "nai izan zue", "vaino len", "nai hizan zizun", "bihar tziuan", "publicacen baita", "nai du", "beño len".
- In negative formal verbs, the separation of "ez" has also been carried out, even in those cases where phonetic change can be noted: "ez deila", "ez daveinec", "ez badeiteque" , "ez ditzein", "ez guitzazu", "ez guitzala", "ez tezagula", "ez tugunein", "ez tirelacos", "ez paitu", "ez tituenac".
- The cases where mixed elements appear have been mantained: "obronen" (<"obra onen), "beaute" (<bear dute), "veinipein" (<beinik bein), "yorquere" (iork ere).
- Morphological endings such as "-ganik", "garna", "daco," are bound to their roots: 'Maria Virginaganic', 'Geinaganic', 'daudenenganic', 'mundiuarenganic', "amavigarna", "vigarna", "sanduarendaco".
|
|
|
|
