apograph: a copy of a written work made by a scribe or printer from an existing exemplar, as distinct from an autograph (the author's own hand) or from an original source document. Parameters: (1) the source must be a written or printed text, (2) the apograph must be produced by a different hand from the original, (3) it serves as a vehicle for transmitting the text when the original is lost, damaged, or inaccessible. The persistence mechanism is material — ink on paper, digital files, and the institutional practices of copying and archiving that keep texts alive across generations of reproduction. This construct maps the human practice of text reproduction and the distinction between original and derived copies. [formal: apographa | substrate: matter | horizon: generations | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.02]
Accepted ontology entry
apograph
apograph: a copy of a written work made by a scribe or printer from an existing exemplar, as distinct from an autograph (the author's own hand) or from an original source document. Parameters: (1) the source must be a written or printed te…
Definition
Why it is in scope
human-made textual practice — a copy or transcript of a document, especially one made from memory or without consulting the original source. Built to persist through scholarly convention and cataloging systems.
Names and aliases
- apographen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmr784qud000ys126ggjk6dbaDEPENDS_ON →
An apograph is a handwritten copy of a text not from the original author — the concept is constitutively about written texts. Without writing, there are no apographs.
- cmroeab1k04jzd1nld19dpelsINSTANCE_OF →
An apograph IS a specific kind of manuscript — a handwritten copy of a text that differs from the original in minor ways. Direction specific→general per Law 9.
- cmryhv1ck0102ekkxvvy9d8i7INSTANCE_OF →
An apograph is a specific type of document: a copy made from an original manuscript. 'Is an apograph a type of document?' Yes — it is a document that reproduces the content of an earlier manuscript copy. The nearest kind is document.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 17, 2026, 9:53 AM UTC
- Content hash
- e9dfac825c811ef823a4bf3c386ee7ecedd1c1c5bf2d9e2df96083200c61f5f5