[1] From: Matthew Hansen <matthew.hansen@university- (32)
college.oxford.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: 10.0881 metrical analysis?
> Two colleagues in the University of London are embarking on a project to do
> metrical analysis of 13th-15th century English, on a corpus they will be
> creating of about 500,000 words. Variants and dialectical differences are
> involved. They would be most grateful for any suggestions about what
> software they might benefit from. In particular, it seemed to me that a
> syllable-counting or marking routine would help, even if it could do no
> better than 50-60% accuracy in identifying syllables. It is clear that the
> end-product, technically speaking, has to be a marked-up text, but they are
> not yet entirely certain what to mark and how to mark it.
>
> Comments and advice should be sent to Humanist. I will forward messages to them.
>
> Thanks.
>
> WM
>
I imagine your colleagues may have already been in touch with Don Foster
at Vassar who's work with SHAXICON, a database metrical analysis tool, has
gained him praise, disdain and notoriety from the community of Shakespeare
scholars and enthusiasts.
In case they haven't tho' I'm sure he would be willing to lend advice from
his considerable expertise in these matters.
His e-mail: foster@vassar.edu