Stemmatics and cladistics: similarities, differences and possibilities of interaction

Abstract

When a biologist, cooked in a systematic formation and fried in the study of the plant evolution, starts in the study of critical text editing, the stemmata representing the relationships between the different testimonies of a text, call attention. In the collatio and the elaboration of the stemma codicum, the Lachmannian method resembles studies in the phylogeny of living beings (cladistics). Since phylogeny is the reconstruction of relationships between groups of living beings, establishing hypotheses of their origins and evolution from a common ancestor, generating as results diagrams (cladograms) similar to those generated with stemmatic. The aim of this study is to present the main concepts of stemmatic and cladistic. Two texts were chosen to make the cladistic study: 1- "Lai de l'ombre" by Renart, as presented in Bédier (1970 [1929]) and 2- the Ibero-Romanesque tradition of the work of Isaac de Nínive, as presented in Cambraia and Avellar (2017). In both analyzes, the low consistency of the groups formed stands out (low Bootstrap value). Considering the tradition of "Lai de l'ombre", the stemma proposed in Quintin's work agrees with the obtained cladogram, however, this one shows a better resolution. Considering the tradition of Isaac de Nínive. the resulting cladogram shows that the copies of the Catalan tradition were a monophyletic group, while the copies of the Portuguese tradition form a monophyletic group the Spanish copy of Seville. Comparing the results obtained with the stemma presented in Cambraia and Avelar (2017) the resulting cladogram shows a better resolution, corroborating the monophyletism of the Portuguese and Catalan traditions; as well as the non-monophyletism of Latin traditions. The above shows that cladistics can indeed contribute significantly to the development of stemmata, in the process of applying the Lachmannian method.