Encoding Medieval Abbreviations for Computer Analysis (from Latin-Portuguese and Portuguese Non-literary Sources)

This paper proposes a solution to the problem of handling scribal abbreviations in TEI-conformant transcriptions of medieval texts, following a conservative editorial strategy. A key distinction is drawn between alphabetic abbreviations, which represent sequences of letters, and logographic abbreviations which represent whole words. The TEI elements and can be used systematically to separate these two types: alphabetic abbreviations will be expanded in the main text, recording the abbreviated form (including TEI entities representing the main abbreviation marks) as an attribute of , while logographic abbreviations will be represented in their abbreviated form, with the expanded form recorded as an attribute of . The proposals are illustrated from common abbreviations and short text samples from tenthcentury Latin–Portuguese and thirteenth-century Old Portuguese. Lit&Ling; 17/3 345-360 Final 12/2/03 12:35 pm Page 345