LGPN-Ling for the Preservation of Greek Personal Names in a Digital Environment

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the preservation of Greek personal names in a digital environment, going beyond the concept of ‘name entity’ and taking into account the morphological, morphosyntactic and lexical entities involved in the analysis of these personal names. To achieve this, I will focus on the output of the LGPN-Ling project, directed by Sophie Minon: the LGPN-Ling search site and the printed volume of Lexonyme. I will first examine the structure of the website and its conception, taking into account the uncertainties that can arise in the analysis of personal names and that can be difficult to convey in a clear and concise manner. I will then use representative examples to illustrate how the structure of the LGPN-Ling site allows Greek personal names to be preserved in a digital environment not only as nomina omina, but also as even smaller entities such as morphemes and lexemes. Indeed, each entry in the database is connected and linked to the others in all aspects of its analysis. This includes gender, geolinguistics, bases, suffixes, morphosyntax, semantic and even lexical correspondences in Greek. Names are thus linked on the basis of one or more of these features, creating a complex network of interrelationships between the registered forms.