Recent work by Meissner, and Tse and Frischer examines the variability of function words within the Scriptores Historiae Augustae (SHA) and other texts by Latin authors. In this paper, we correct the methodological flaws, both statistical and textual, of these works. We examine the variability of function words using van Valen's test for equality of variances of several samples and find no evidence for the presence of a 'purple thread' of single authorship through the texts of the SHA

http://llc.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/3/141.full.pdf

Unravelling the Purple Thread: Function Word Variability and the Scriptores Historiae Augustae

Martha Waller, Butler University; Robert ap Roberts, California State University, Northridge; Ginger Scott Zelk, Central Missouri State Univer­ sity; David Richardson, Cleveland State University; Edmund Reiss, David G. Allen, David W. Hiscoe, Christopher B. Kennedy, Duke University; Judson Boyce Allen, Marquette University; Robert Raymo, New York University; Beverly Taylor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Christine G. Pearcy, Nan Arbuckle, J. Lane Goodall, Nancy Zorn, University of Oklahoma; Stanley Hauer, University of Southern Mississippi; Claire Clements, Philip Gibson, Steven Jones, Penelope Minick, Carolyn Popp, Victoria Posey, Stephen Steadman, Michael Tierce, Cand­ ance Weaver-Wages, University of Tennessee, Knoxville; James Wimsatt, Clare Colquitt, Paula Marks, University of Texas, Austin; Werner Beis, University of Trier; Constance Heiatt, University of Western Ontario. This bibliography continues those of Eleanor P. Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual [to 1908], New York: Peter Smith, 1933; D. D. Griffith, Bibliography of Chaucer 1908-1953, Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1955; W. R. Crawford, Bibliography of Chaucer 1954-1963, Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1967; Lorrayne Y. Baird, Bibliography of Chaucer 1964-1973, Boston: G. K. Hall, 1977; and J. H. Fisher, Bibliography for 1963-197 4 in The Complete Poetry and Prose of Geoffrey Chaucer, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977. The annotations are based upon the 1977 and 1978 listings in the MLA International Bibliography. The 1979 New Chaucer Society Year­ book, Studies in the Age of Chaucer (SAC) carried an annotated bibliogra­ phy for 1975-1976. It is planned that the Yearbook for 1981 will carry a bibliography for 1979 and that coverage will be in single year increments thereafter.

An Annotated Chaucer Bibliography 1977–1978

Publisher Summary This chapter presents a project on the study of Chaucer's vocabulary undertaken by Walter S. Phelan. The computer has added an important dimension to studies of text, comparable to the invention of printing. The chapter describes a system for the analysis of Chaucer's vocabulary with the aid of a computer. Close examination of Chaucer's use of function words in The Canterbury Tales reveals that words that serve a purely syntactic function in prose often serve additional functions in verse. His works represent a separate attempt by him mapping the logosphere, and elementary differences in approach are reflected in the differences in the vocabulary of each tale. More especially, the vocabulary of Chaucer's version of a given tale may be compared to other versions in Middle and Modern English to illuminate his style of narrative discourse and ultimately his logosphere.

Walter S. Phelan

Papers

The Study of Chaucer's Vocabulary