Cyril-Methodian and Eastern Bulgarian Words in the Manuscripts of the 10th – 15th Centuries (Text Corpus Study)

Abstract

The correlation of statistical characteristics of the so-called Cyrillo-Methodian and Eastern Bulgarian words in groups of texts characterized by different textological and(or) codicological meanings is presented: Glagolitic – Cyrillic, service – non-service, archaic – Eastern Bulgarian subcorpora. Synonymous pairs of vrětishche – vlasěnitsa 'rough (horsehair) clothes'; zhrъtva – trěba 'sacrifice'; radi – dělya 'because of, due to, on account of, for'; tъkъmo – tъchiyu 'only, just, merely'; vrat'nikъ – vratar' 'gatekeeper, doorkeeper'; outro – zautra '(early) in the morning'; yako – aky 'how, as, like'; aminъ 'Amen' – parvo 'rightly'; aromatъ – vonya '(fragrant) spices'; iyuděi – zhidъ 'Jew' are analyzed. The method of comparing the statistical meaning of the word observed in the subcorpora with the expected meaning is applied. The statistics measures Log-Likelihood, TF*ICTF and Weirdness were used. The components of synonymic pairs were extracted from subcorpora and evaluated using the historical corpus statistics module. Comparison of the statistical preference of the components of synonymic pairs in different subcorpora made it possible (a) to confirm the known confinement of each of the components to archaic and Eastern Bulgarian texts opposed to each other, (b) to show a different ratio of the components of pairs in different subcorpora, and also (c) to draw conclusions about the dependence of the preference of components on the lexical and lexical-derivational characteristics of lexemes.