WordChorus

http://www.wordchorus.com

WordChorus is a tool specifically designed to find patterns in Ancient Greek texts. Have you ever wondered how many verses in the Iliad begin with a rough breathing? Or how many words in Antigone end in the phoneme group οι, ει or αι? Do you want to count the number of accents in the Argonautica? If so, WordChorus may be the right tool for you.

What is WordChorus?

 * A tool to help researchers quickly assess various claims regarding stylistic and linguistic patterns in Ancient Greek texts
 * A way for researchers without programming resources to easily search for patterns in Ancient Greek texts
 * An open source web application available for download

What kind of patterns can I search for?

 * Search for lines with a specified number of repeated phonemes (assonance, alliteration)
 * Search for lines with a specified number of repeated accents (acute, circumflex, grave)
 * Search for lines with a specified number of repeated breathing marks (rough, smooth)
 * Using the Levenshtein-Distance metric, search for repeated words or near-words (rhyme)
 * Search for user defined patterns of phoneme sequences
 * Search for lines that have phonemes in particular positions (first word, last word, every word)
 * Search for lines that have accents or breathing marks in particular positions (first word, last word, every word)

Why was WordChorus developed?

 * The data sets used in Ancient Greek repetition studies are generally not available for re-analysis
 * Research in the area has required programming expertise, limiting the number of contributors to the discussion
 * Existing web applications provide limited text pattern search facilities for Ancient Greek

Some Examples

 * Search for all the verses in the Iliad that have 5 or more words beginning with a rough breathing. Here is one of the results (Book 10, line 526):

οἳ δ’ ὅτε δή ῥ’ ἵκανον ὅθι σκοπὸν ʽ´Εκτορος ἔκταν


 * Search for all the verses in the Iliad that have 4 or more words ending in οι. Here is one of the results (Book 5, line 222):

οἷοι Τρώϊοι ἵπποι ἐπιστάμενοι πεδίοιο

Where can I download the source code?
The WordChorus source code is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0-standalone.html

It is available for download on Bitbucket at: https://bitbucket.org/hlynam/wordchorus

What texts does WordChorus use?
WordChorus contains XML texts based on the Perseus Digital Library (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu) XML files used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/