@phdthesis{8730680,
  abstract     = {{In this dissertation I explore Byzantine metre, within the framework of the modern linguistic theory of information structure. I have done this in a corpus of Byzantine book epigrams, in order to come to more generic conclusions about Byzantine poetic texts in general. My focus is mainly on the two typically medieval metres (i.e. the dodecasyllable and the political verse) and their variants. The findings discussed are divided into two main categories: quantitative and qualititative conclusions.
The quantitative conclusions are the results of my tagging in my own subdatabase, which is part of the larger Database of Byzantine Book Epigrams. I have tagged several characteristics in my corpus, in order to search for the linguistic properties of a metrical colon (‘What makes a colon tick?’), based on the idea that metrical cola function in a similar way to Information Units. Indeed, the theory of Information Units states that spoken language is never pronounced in long sentences, but rather in short ‘spurts’ or ‘chunks’. These ‘chunks’ (Information Units) have a cognitive basis, since they emanate from a restriction in our short-term memory. On the other hand, we find that medieval metres exhibit a tendency to be divided into prosodic ‘chunks’ as wel: i.e. cola. Indeed, the similarity between the two has been studied several times and implies that metrical cola also have a cognitive aspect to them. Against this background, I have gone searching for different signposts of information structure within the epigrams in my corpus, in order to objectively identify these cola/IUs.
The qualitative conclusions are spread over two chapter. In Chapter 6 I have investigated some of the more formulaic epigrams in my corpus from closerby, with the similarity between cola and IUs in mind. Indeed, several book epigrams are somewhere in between oral and written texts in terms of their transmission, and therefore exhibit a host of metrical (and other) mistakes. I have explained the emergence of these mistakes, which are understandable if you keep in mind that metrical cola function as IUs. In Chapter 7, I have studied the vague line between poetry and prose, since many epigrams do not seem to be clearly one or the other. As it turns out, the Byzantines themselves did not have a clear terminology to separate the two themselves, so we might be trying to impose modern labels to medieval texts.
All in all, these book epigrams have proven to be a true window into the minds of the scribes that produced them, and have given us some glimpses of what happened there at the moment of verse production.}},
  author       = {{Boeten, Julie}},
  keywords     = {{Medieval Greek,Byzantine Greek,Book epigrams,Linguistics,Pragmatics,Information structure,Dodecasyllable,Metre}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{XIV, 281}},
  publisher    = {{Ghent University. Faculty of Arts and Philosophy}},
  school       = {{Ghent University}},
  title        = {{Byzantine metre from the margins : a corpus-based, pragmatic analysis of medieval book epigrams}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}