ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how and why digital editions of texts or text-versions could facilitate a truly diachronic study of the Greek language. It points out shortcomings of existing digital infrastructure and argues in favour of a general shift of focus towards linguistic analysis of transmitted texts with the help of electronic corpora that primarily model medieval manuscripts rather than modern editions. The use of computer technology in the making of a particular edition takes place in a particular research context. The use of computer-assisted analytic methods may restore historical criticism of large textual traditions as a central aim for scholarly editors. One such large database of Greek texts, the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG), is considered by many as 'a prime example of how a humanities discipline has changed fundamentally for the better in consequence of the acceptance of technology'. The TLG was designed in 1972 as a digital library of Classical Greek texts.
