stemmatics

English

WOTD – 12 September 2010

Etymology

From stemma, from Ancient Greek στέμματα (stémmata, “family trees, genealogy”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /stəˈmætɪks/, /stɛmˈætɪks/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ætɪks

Noun

stemmatics (uncountable)

1. The study of multiple surviving versions of the same text with the aim of reconstructing a lost original.
   • 2004, Conor Fahy, “Old and New in Italian Textual Criticism”, in Raimonda Modiano, Leroy Searle, Peter L. Shillingsburg, editors, Voice, Text, Hypertext: Emerging Practices in Textual Studies, page 404:

     In other words, they must carry out an operation similar to the collations required by Lachmannian stemmatics, after which they must make a critical (i.e., subjective) choice. And, when constituting the text, they do not just slavishly copy their source, obvious errors included; their editions always contain an element of interpretation.

Synonyms

• stemmatology

Related terms

• stemma

Translations

study of multiple surviving versions of the same text

• French: stemmatique (fr)
• Italian: stemmatica
• Spanish: stemmática