Editing Textual criticism (section)

=== Phylogenetics ===
[[Image:Canterbury Tales.png|thumb|200px|''[[Canterbury Tales]]'', Woodcut 1484]]
[[Phylogenetics]] is a technique borrowed from [[biology]], where it was originally named ''phylogenetic systematics'' by [[Willi Hennig]]. In biology, the technique is used to determine the [[evolution]]ary relationships between different [[species]].<ref>Schuh 2000, p. 7</ref> In its application in textual criticism, the text of a number of different witnesses may be entered into a computer, which records all the differences between them, or derived from an existing apparatus. The manuscripts are then grouped according to their shared characteristics. The difference between phylogenetics and more traditional forms of statistical analysis is that, rather than simply arranging the manuscripts into rough groupings according to their overall similarity, phylogenetics assumes that they are part of a branching family tree and uses that assumption to derive relationships between them. This makes it more like an automated approach to stemmatics. However, where there is a difference, the computer does not attempt to decide which reading is closer to the original text, and so does not indicate which branch of the tree is the "root"—which manuscript tradition is closest to the original. Other types of evidence must be used for that purpose.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}

Phylogenetics faces the same difficulty as textual criticism: the appearance of characteristics in descendants of an ancestor other than by direct copying (or miscopying) of the ancestor, for example where a scribe combines readings from two or more different manuscripts ("contamination"). The same phenomenon is widely present among living organisms, as instances of [[horizontal gene transfer]] (or lateral gene transfer) and [[genetic recombination]], particularly among bacteria. Further exploration of the applicability of the different methods for coping with these problems across both living organisms and textual traditions is a promising area of study.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221145935 |title=Chi-Squares and the Phenomenon of "Change of Exemplar" in the Dyutaparvan. (PDF Download Available) |access-date=2017-05-16 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170816060750/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221145935_Chi-Squares_and_the_Phenomenon_of_Change_of_Exemplar_in_the_Dyutaparvan |archive-date=2017-08-16 }} Wendy J. Phillips-Rodriguez*, Christopher J. Howe, Heather F. Windram "Chi-Squares and the Phenomenon of 'Change of Exemplar' in the Dyutaparvan", Sanskrit Computational Linguistics, First and Second International Symposia Rocquencourt, France, October 29–31, 2007 Providence, RI, U, May 15–17, 2008 Revised Selected and Invited Papers; Windram,  H. F., Howe, C. J., Spencer M.: "The identification of exemplar change in the Wife of Bath's Prologue using the maximum chi-squared method".  ''Literary and Linguistic Computing'' 20, 189–-204 (2005).</ref>

Software developed for use in biology has been applied successfully to textual criticism; for example, it is being used by the [[Canterbury Tales Project]]<ref>[https://www.canterburytalesproject.org/ The Canterbury Tales Project Official Website]</ref> to determine the relationship between the 84 surviving manuscripts and four early printed editions of ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]''. Shaw's edition of Dante's ''Commedia'' uses phylogenetic and traditional methods alongside each other in a comprehensive exploration of relations among seven early witnesses to Dante's text.<ref>[http://www.sd-editions.com/Commedia/index.html Commedia] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170531035812/http://www.sd-editions.com/Commedia/index.html |date=2017-05-31 }} Shaw edition, 2010</ref>