Statistic functions¶

Algorithm¶

A line of Spanish verse is measured by its metrical syllables, which are not the syllables of its words one by one:

Syllables and stresses. Every word is split into syllables by syllabify and stressed by the orthographic rules of word_stresses; an adverb in -mente has two stresses. The unstressed words of the verse (VERSE_PROCLITICS) take no stress: the articles, the prepositions except según, the conjunctions, the relatives (que, cual, donde, como, cuanto), the clitic pronouns (me, te, se, le, nos), the possessives before a noun (mi, tu, su, nuestro, vuestro), the titles before a name (don, fray, san), tan, aun and the interjections oh, ay, ah. The last word of a line is always stressed.
The plain reading. The final vowel of a word and the first one of the next make one syllable - a synalepha (cuan-do‿a-pe-nas, tie-rra‿y‿a-gua). A silent h lets it through (oh‿al-ma), while hi and hu before a vowel (hierba, hueso) and y before a vowel (ya, yo) are consonants and stop it; a consonant at the end of a word stops it too (el | al-ma).
The law of the final stress. A line counts up to its last stressed syllable and one syllable more: a line that ends in an aguda gets a syllable (cuan-do‿ha-ce-la-ca-lor - 6 + 1 = 7), a line that ends in an esdrújula loses one (el pá-ja-ro - 3).
The meter. The meter of a poem is the length of most plain readings; on a tie from three lines up, the tied length with a name that leaves the fewest lines off it wins. Every line is fitted to it with the fewest changes of its plain reading: a longer line joins two vowels of a hiatus in a word - a synaeresis (poe-ta), the ones with an accented i or u (dí-a) last; a shorter line breaks its synalephas from the end of the line - a hiatus, then splits a diphthong of a stressed syllable - a dieresis (su-a-ve, ru-i-do). A written diaeresis marks a hiatus (sü-a-ve) that no synaeresis joins. A line that cannot reach the meter keeps its plain reading and counts as off it. A poem without a meter fits its lines to its common lengths instead, if they take more than half of the lines.
Compound verse. A compound verse of two equal hemistichs (VERSE_HEMISTICHS: 5 + 5, 6 + 6, 7 + 7, 8 + 8, 9 + 9) is tried when more than half of the plain readings split into its hemistichs and its length equals the one of most lines or is one syllable off it; the reading with fewer lines off the meter wins, the compound verse on a tie. The caesura falls after a stressed word and blocks the synalepha, and each hemistich follows the law of the final stress on its own: the alejandrino La princesa está pálida | en su silla de oro is 7 + 7.

On the 60,209 lines of the 4,259 sonnets of SpanishSonnets, the length of a line agrees with the automatic scansion of DISCO in 97.0% of the lines and with rantanplan in 97.7%, and the stress of a metrical syllable of the lines of equal length in 97.4% and 99.6%.

The rhyme is described in the module. Against the automatic rhyme of DISCO (RhymeTagger), 99.1% of the pairs of rhyming lines we find are its pairs, and we find 97.9% of its pairs.

Accentuation¶

ests.verse_stats.accentuate()

Marks the stresses of a text by the orthographic rules: an acute accent (U+0301) is put after the stressed vowel of every word without a written accent, both stresses of an adverb in -mente and of a hyphenated compound; the unstressed words of the verse (VERSE_PROCLITICS) stay unmarked. The text is normalized to NFC. For the lines of a poem, where the last word is always stressed, the method VerseStats.accentuate serves.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`text`	str	`-`	Text

Example

import unicodedata
from ests.verse_stats import accentuate

text = "Yo soy aquel que ayer no más decía el verso azul y la canción profana"
unicodedata.normalize("NFC", accentuate(text))
# 'Yó sóy aquél que ayér nó más decía el vérso azúl y la canción profána'

Meter¶

ests.verse_stats.detect_meter()

Detects the meter of a poem: the name of the verse by its metrical syllables (octosílabo, endecasílabo, alejandrino...), or None if more than a tenth of the lines have another length or the text has a single line.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`text`	str	`-`	Text of a poem

Example

from ests.verse_stats import detect_meter

# The beginning of the Romance del prisionero
detect_meter(
    "Que por mayo era, por mayo,\ncuando hace la calor,\ncuando los trigos encañan\ny están los campos en flor,"
)
# 'octosílabo'

Rhyme scheme¶

ests.verse_stats.rhyme_scheme()

Detects the rhyme scheme of a poem: the schemes of the stanzas separated by spaces, the letters in the order of the rhyme groups of the poem, upper-case for the lines of arte mayor and lower-case for the lines of arte menor, unrhymed lines as a hyphen.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`text`	str	`-`	Text of a poem
`seseo`	bool	`False`	Pronounce `c` and `z` before `e` and `i` as `s` in the rhyme

Example

from ests.verse_stats import rhyme_scheme

# Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
rhyme_scheme(
    "Hombres necios que acusáis\na la mujer sin razón,\nsin ver que sois la ocasión\nde lo mismo que culpáis."
)
# 'abba'

Stanzas¶

ests.verse_stats.split_stanzas()

Splits a text into stanzas and lines: the stanzas are separated by blank lines, and the lines without a Spanish syllable (numbers, asterisks, other alphabets) are left out. The text is normalized to NFC.

Parameters:

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`text`	str	`-`	Text of a poem

Example

from ests.verse_stats import split_stanzas

split_stanzas(
    "Cuando me paro a contemplar mi estado\n"
    "y a ver los pasos por do me han traído,\n\n* * *\n\n"
    "hallo, según por do anduve perdido,"
)
# [['Cuando me paro a contemplar mi estado', 'y a ver los pasos por do me han traído,'],
#  ['hallo, según por do anduve perdido,']]