A corpus is a bounded collection of texts assembled for the purpose of analysis, reference, or training. Its defining parameters are: (1) the selection principle that determines membership (genre, period, author, language, theme, or provenance), (2) the boundary rule that excludes non-members (date range, format standard, language filter), (3) the organizing schema (chronological, taxonomic, topical, or network-based), and (4) the access protocol (open archive, subscription library, API endpoint, physical repository). A corpus persists through cataloguing systems, indexing infrastructures, and the scholarly or commercial conventions that sustain its selection principles across generations of users. The corpus is not the texts themselves — it is the frame that makes those texts comparable, searchable, and usable as evidence.\n\n[formal: corpus | substrate: matter | horizon: generations | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.47]
Accepted ontology entry
corpus
A corpus is a bounded collection of texts assembled for the purpose of analysis, reference, or training. Its defining parameters are: (1) the selection principle that determines membership (genre, period, author, language, theme, or proven…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made collection of texts or artifacts assembled, curated, and maintained as a structured body for analysis, reference, or study. It is an institution of curation — not a pile but a selected set organized by criteria its creators chose.
Names and aliases
- corpusen · CANONICAL
- text-corpusen · ALIAS
Relations from this entry
- cmr784qq1000ks126wltnuaxhDEPENDS_ON →
A corpus — a collection of texts used for analysis — requires language to exist. Without language, the concept and the practice collapse entirely. Constitutive dependency.
- cmrc64qn400ama9g4ecj9y9e1INSTANCE_OF →
A corpus is a specific kind of archive — a systematically compiled collection of texts or data used as a representative sample. Per Law 9, a competent speaker would call a corpus 'a type of archive' for linguistic or research purposes.
Relations to this entry
- cmrmyvjly01rrd1nlngjbysvs← INSTANCE_OF
A canon is a bounded collection of texts whose selection principle is authority/orthodoxy — exactly the corpus parameter that determines membership. The canon of literature, scripture, and music is a corpus of works filtered by canonical status; a competent speaker calls the canon a corpus. Law 9: X is a specific kind of Y, and corpus is the NEAREST kind (no narrower 'authoritative text collection' exists). Sense pinned to the primary works/texts reading; 'canon of principles' is the secondary sense.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 16, 2026, 8:09 PM UTC
- Content hash
- ce58e50c93f6ca88579c8b6e41e47e19045663ae105da69d22125bc6daca47f8