### Corpus description, PPCME2, release 5

- General information
- Helsinki periods
- Wordcount information

#### General information

The PPCME2 text samples are based largely on the Middle English section of the Diachronic Part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts, with certain additions and deletions. However, the size of the samples is considerably larger. For the earliest Helsinki time period, all texts are exhaustively sampled. For later Helsinki time periods, two texts per period were expanded to 50,000 words. The remaining texts are represented by the Helsinki Corpus sample.

The current edition of the PPCME2 contains roughly 1.2 million words of running text. Each of the 58 text samples in the corpus is available in three forms: parsed, part-of-speech tagged, and unannotated text. In addition, there is a file with philological and bibliographical information about each text.

#### Helsinki periods

The main Helsinki time periods are M1-M4, each covering approximately one hundred years. In addition, texts originally written in a given period but for which the earliest manuscript is from a later period are given two digit period designations. Table 1 is a list of all Helsinki periods as they appear in the corpus file names.

> Table 1: Helsinki periods
> Period designation | Composition date | Manuscript date
> --- | --- | ---
> MX1 | unknown | 1150-1250
> M1 | 1150-1250 | 1150-1250
> M2 | 1250-1350 | 1250-1350
> M23 | 1250-1350 | 1350-1420
> M24 | 1250-1350 | 1420-1500
> M3 | 1350-1420 | 1350-1420
> M34 | 1350-1420 | 1420-1500
> MX4 | unknown | 1420-1500
> M4 | 1420-1500 | 1420-1500

#### Wordcount information

Wordcounts for the individual text samples, along with date and genre information, are given below. If cut and pasted into a text file, the resulting file can be imported into other applications; the field separator is the space character. The wordcounts exclude punctuation and extralinguistic material such as page numbers or token ID numbers.

    Text Date Genre Wordcount
    1200-brut-m1 1190_1215 VERSE 41561
    1490-caxton-benet-m4 1490 RULE 7864
    cmaelr3-m23 c1400 RULE 16952
    cmaelr4-m4 a1450 RELIG_TREATISE 11117
    cmancriw-1-m1 c1230 RELIG_TREATISE 49211
    cmancriw-2-m1 c1230 RELIG_TREATISE 15376
    cmastro-m3 a1450_c1391 HANDBOOK_ASTRO 6847
    cmayenbi-m2 1340 RELIG_TREATISE 45641
    cmbenrul-m3 a1425 RULE 18224
    cmboeth-m3 ?a1425_c1380 PHILOSOPHY 10203
    cmbrut3-m3 c1400 HISTORY 50158
    cmcapchr-m4 a1464 HISTORY 52506
    cmcapser-m4 c1452 SERMON 1459
    cmcloud-m3 a1425_?a1400 RELIG_TREATISE 15631
    cmctmeli-m3 c1390 PHILOSOPHY/FICTION 16939
    cmctpars-m3 c1390 RELIG_TREATISE 30259
    cmearlps-m2 c1350 BIBLE 44598
    cmedmund-m4 c1450_1438 BIOGRAPHY_LIFE_OF_SAINT 3831
    cmedthor-m34 c1440_?1350 RELIG_TRREATISE 13896
    cmedvern-m3 c1390 RELIG_TREATISE 12798
    cmequato-m3 c1392 HANDBOOK_ASTRO 6274
    cmfitzja-m4 ?1495 SERMON 5808
    cmgaytry-m34 c1440 SERMON 5207
    cmgregor-m4 c1475 HISTORY 36671
    cmhali-m1 c1225_?c1200 RELIG_TREATISE 8915
    cmhilton-m34 a1450_a1396 RELIG_TREATISE 4906
    cmhorses-m3 a1450 HANDBOOK_MEDICINE 6315
    cminnoce-m4 1497 SERMON 4247
    cmjulia-m1 c1225_?c1200 BIOGRAPHY_LIFE_OF_SAINT 7219
    cmjulnor-m34 c1450_c1400 RELIG_TREATISE 5029
    cmkathe-m1 c1225_?c1200 BIOGRAPHY_LIFE_OF_SAINT 9105
    cmkempe-m4 c1450 RELIG_TREATISE 62926
    cmkentho-m1 a1150_c1125 HOMILY 4272
    cmkentse-m2 c1275 HOMILY 3504
    cmlamb1-m1 a1225 HOMILY 6475
    cmlambx1-mx1 a1225 HOMILY 20691
    cmmalory-m4 a1470 ROMANCE 57393
    cmmandev-m3 ?a1425_c1400 TRAVELOGUE 51556
    cmmarga-m1 c1225_?c1200 BIOGRAPHY_LIFE_OF_SAINT 8539
    cmmirk-m34 a1500_a1415 SERMON 57548
    cmntest-m3 c1388 BIBLE 10986
    cmorm-m1 ?c1200 HOMILY_POETRY 53474
    cmotest-m3 a1425_a1382 BIBLE 9842
    cmpeterb-m1 c1150 HISTORY 7310
    cmpolych-m3 a1387 HISTORY 45769
    cmpurvey-m3 c1388 RELIG_TREATISE 39454
    cmreynar-m4 1481 FICTION 8775
    cmreynes-m4 1470-1500 HANDBOOK_OTHER 8852
    cmrollep-m24 a1450_?1348 RELIG_TREATISE 17850
    cmrolltr-m24 c1440_a1349 RELIG_TREATISE 17611
    cmroyal-m34 c1450_c1425 SERMON 6191
    cmsawles-m1 c1225_?c1200 HOMILY 4318
    cmsiege-m4 c1500 ROMANCE 7618
    cmthorn-mx4 c1440 HANDBOOK_MEDICINE 5717
    cmtrinit-mx1 a1225 HOMILY 41554
    cmvices1-m1 a1225_c1200 RELIG_TREATISE 27521
    cmvices4-m34 c1450_c1400 RELIG_TREATISE 7044
    cmwycser-m3 c1400 SERMON 55666