The digital Lexicon Translaticium Latinum: Theoretical and methodological issues

In this paper, we present some theoretical and methodological issues involved with the creation of the Lexicon Translaticium Latinum, a new digital resource for the study of Latin metaphors. This resource is based on the ontology of the Latin WordNet ‘2.0’ (https:// latinwordnet.exeter.ac.uk) but extends this specification so as to be able to capture the kinds of large-scale metaphorical patterns that are becoming increasingly documented in Latin’s semantic system. In particular, we discuss 1) the theory and method underpinning the revised and expanded ontology; 2) the tagset adopted for classifying metaphors and their relations; and 3) the procedure for annotating conceptual metaphors and linking these with other semantic structures within the WordNet (synsets). In line with the recognition in the ‘second wave’ cognitive sciences that metaphor is a fundamental mechanism of human cognition (as well as key to the structuring of cultural understanding), our aim is to establish the Lexicon not merely as a comprehensive repository of figurative usage in Latin, but as an accurate model of the conceptual system that its speakers relied upon in thinking, speaking and behaving in diverse contexts of symbolic expression.