Encoding paremias as sets of proverbial markers: a computational study on Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis

Abstract

Abstract The goal of this work is to analyse the paremias contained in Petronius’ Cena Trimalchionis (CT) through qualitative, quantitative, and computational points of view to identify measures of their degree of proverbiality. We explore a typology of proverbial markers, including sentences and phrases, syntax and structure, structural markers, emphatic word order, parataxis, and rhetorical figures. To achieve our goal, a fully hand-defined counting model of paremias in CT ( n = 163) has been created and curated, along with two groups built following the same pipeline as control groups: (i) Latin proverbial expressions ( n = 125) and (ii) modern multilingual proverbial expressions ( n = 72) from reference literature. We conduct two main studies: a descriptive study (e.g., distribution of features) for a qualitative and quantitative analysis, and a feature-distributional approach to understand which markers are peculiar in CT when compared to the control group. The contribution of the study lies in the encoding of paremias in sets of features, enabling the analysis and creation of fine-grained research questions from also from a cross-linguistic perspective.