"On quoting ..." - a corpus-based study on the phraseology of well-known quotations

Quotations are an interesting linguistic phenomenon in at least two respects: firstly they link ordinary language with the language of the poets, and secondly they typically represent creativity within formulaicity. To study quotations in more detail, a database of quotations from and allusions to Shakespeare's Hamlet, one of the most often-quoted literary artefacts, is being built at the University of Basel. The construction of the database is outlined and a first example of application is delivered. The study on historical phraseology concentrates on three lines from Hamlet, which despite their common source and their conceptual similarity vary considerably in their domains and periods of re-application. It is suggested that semantic, rhetoric, syntactic and discourse functional factors influence the choice of quotational use.