Metrics in Rules

Metric and rhythmic aspects are examined on a 80 000-verse corpus, analysed with computational linguistics tools. We propose a cumulative experimental approach consisting in building a verse pattern with a series of features (morpho-syntactic, stress, rhyme...). Features may characterize units of different levels (syllables, hemi-verse, verse, etc.) and are evidenced by different tools, but all are integrated in a single database. Thus we can verify classic metric rules and hypotheses. We also document new regularities, for example on stress patterns, and we test some new hypotheses about links between traits and patterns. This empirical approach on a large corpus, beyond verification of hypotheses, may lead to the construction of grounded theories.