ROMJIST Volume 25, No. 3-4, 2022, pp. 275-289
Horia Nicolai TEODORESCU, Speranta Cecilia BOLEA A Comparative Lexical Analysis of Three Romanian Works – The Etymological Metalepsis Role and Etymological Indices
ABSTRACT: We introduce an etymological perspective in computational linguistic and apply it for the analysis of literary works with self-biographic content. Our hypothesis is that etymological mixtures used by an author may be a powerful stylistic device. We propose and investigate in the frame of computational linguistics the notion of “etymological metalepsis”; we argue that this device is used by some writers for conveying a sense of the historical frame that their works depict, the specificities of the local context, and even of the sentiments assumed and conveyed by the writer. Three works are analyzed and contrasted from the standpoint of the proposed stylistic device reflecting the etymological mixture used by the author, based on a semi-automated lexicographic analysis and the etymology of the most frequent words. Stylometric indices are suggested in relation with the etymological metalepsis. We also use tools of computational linguistics to elucidate and validate literary critical elements previously published on these oeuvres.KEYWORDS: Computational linguistic, etymology, style, stylistic device, stylometric indices, Zipf lawRead full text (pdf)