The stress codes used in ASPR.ANAL should mostly be self-explanatory.
For a main stress, however, besides the usual "/" it  uses "~" on a short
syllable (followed by "+" on a further syllable taken to create a
resolution), and "$" on what used to be labelled a short monosyllable (the
significant existence of this category, however described, is discussed in
"Variety"). For a subsidiary stress, besides "\" it uses ":" on a short
syllable. The syntactic codes are as listed in "roots.header".

The database was created as a source for the comparisons between different
specimens of Old English verse which form the subject of the articles
"Provisional Report" and "Variety". For that purpose consistency is of
prime importance, a computer is a more consistent device than a human
brain (besides being a much faster one), and the database was created by 
computer. The program that did so, "analyse.c", is available in this 
deposit. The actual output of the computer appears in the database, and it 
can be argued that it should have been used, untampered with, as the source
for the comparisons.

It was not, however. The number of analyses impossible to accept as plau-
sible representations seemed clearly to outweigh the fact that all the 
unacceptable analyses were necessarily consistent on some rule or rules. 
Wherever there is a line in the database prefixed by the symbol "%", the 
line immediately above it represents a human adjustment, slight or 
sweeping, on the basis that whatever principles the computer had followed, 
its output did not follow the rules set out in the article. These rules 
themselves were designed to be capable of exact interpretation (even at 
the cost, sometimes, of prescribing scansions that would be in the judge-
ment of most scholars unsound). But even so, being formulated for human 
comprehension they could not be understood by a computer (at least, not at 
the level of computer technology that we could use; this is not the place 
to speculate on possible higher levels), which could be programmed only 
approximately to follow them. It is certain that the adjustments needed to 
bring the output into accord with the rules will have introduced human 
errors and inconsistencies. It is also true, unfortunately, that the rules 
are not in fact capable of exact interpretation in all cases, in parti-
cular where they require precise syntactic labels to be applied to words. 

One area of difficulty is where the same form can be substantive or adjec-
tive; the program automatically follows evidence from inflection where it 
exists, and this has been accepted even in cases of genitive plurals in
-endra which are normally treated as belonging to nouns in -end, not 
present participles, as in "hettendra" (Genesis 2110a). Another concerns 
forms which can act as prepositions or adverbs. The programming specifies
that a preposition in normal position cannot bear stress, but when
displaced does so; an adverb can bear stress regardless of position in
the absence of words of higher syntactic status. This normally leads to 
classifications which a human adjuster can accept; where in cases like 
"innan breostum" (Genesis 715b, vowel alliteration) it defines as adverb 
what would normally be regarded as a preposition the definition has not 
been disturbed. The most difficult problem concerns forms ending in -e 
which could be adverb or adjective nom/acc plur or instr sing, as with
"hlude" in Genesis 73a. The program's criteria for deciding cannot always
be accepted, since they cannot include consideration of whether the form
as adjective could plausibly agree with an available noun, or alternatively
stand as an independent substantival. A human adjuster who can consider
this will often have clear grounds for decision, as in the above case, in
which the program's analysis as adjective can be confidently corrected to
adverb. Yet such confidence is not always possible. The same form in
Genesis 2909b is glossed in A.N. Doane's edition (U. of Wisconsin Press,
1978) as adverb, but with the alternative reading as adjective instrumental
also given. We have followed the program's choice of the latter (there is
a further complication in that its coding nevertheless called for adjust-
ment, since it indicates the word as in an individual relationship with
"abraham"). The inescapable potentialities for inconsistency are obvious.

Despite these limitations we believe that ASPR.ANAL will be a useful 
resource to scholars looking for evidence on the actual use made in the 
corpus of any metrical type of their interest.
