Word Frequencies and the Study of Roman Law

Extract

The object of this paper is to introduce a simple technique which is of value in the study of Roman law. This is the use of word counts and word frequencies. A scholar may wish to find out how often a given author uses a word or phrase or group of words or phrases either generally or in a particular work. He may wish to do this for groups of authors belonging to a historical period or to a certain school of jurists or to a geographical region. He may wish to do it in order to study the style or vocabulary of the jurist, to confirm impressions gained from reading the texts, or to acquire fresh insights. He may hope to test the authenticity of a given work; is it consistent with the corpus of known authentic writings by that supposed author? He may desire to find out which writers most closely resemble one another in point of style, word use and argumentation. He may wish to study the distribution of a word among classical authors and compilers in order to see to what extent it is likely to be interpolated by the latter and to what extent it is genuinely used by the classics.