The Lemma and Database Design: Redesigning Representative Poetry Online, Lemmatizing Lexicons of Early Modern English, and Envisioning the Lemmatic Web

Abstract

This paper argues for the usefulness of the lemma as the base element for constructing large databases of texts for digital textual analysis and for providing a new hypertextual reading experience.  Support for this is based on the author’s experience designing and developing two major Web initiatives: Representative Poetry Online and the Lexicons of Early Modern English.  The basic database features of the two websites are delineated, but the latter website, in particular, is described with a view towards showing the importance of a shift away from envisioning the database as constructed upon word entries to one constructed upon lemmata.