A historical linguistics corpus of Portuguese (16th-19th centuries)

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to present and discuss a work in progress that involves: – the creation of online editions of historical documents of a metalinguistic nature, which function both as publications and corpora, allowing for the comparison of manuscript images with the diplomatic edition and providing tools for analysis; – the application and development of tools that can easily be manipulated by users and adapted to different kinds of historical texts. The project is still in its first phase, which involves inventorying the metalinguistic texts held by the Évora Public Library (BPE). A survey of the texts of this nature identified in the various catalogues of the library has been carried out. Until now, 43 manuscripts and 200 printed texts with metalinguistic interest, all coming from the reserved catalogues of the BPE, have been identified. In the old reading room catalogue, further 313 works were also identified, while the modern catalogue is yet to be studied. As soon as the inventory is concluded, this will be followed by the organization and the online publication of a catalogue identifying and describing (bibliographical description) the works of a metalinguistic nature held by BPE. The texts’ digital processing shall begin after these previous tasks have been completed.