'These words are not mine. No, nor mine now' - poetic language relocated

Quotations are interesting not only for literary scholars, but also for linguists. Questions such as 'why and how do people quote?' or 'what is the relationship between quotations and the anonymous multi-word units of a language' have so far only randomly been addressed. This paper aims at disentangling some of the mechanisms at work as a precondition to answering those more global questions. A working tool, the database HyperHamlet is introduced and a case study with data from three popular Shakespearean quotations is presented. The study suggests that quotations in practice quickly undergo semantic and formal changes. Nevertheless, patterns and restrictions of usage are discernable, which, in turn, imply a certain independence from the literary source. Some usage patterns are analysed and related to possible semantic, structural and pragmatic factors. However, as there is no simple 1:1 relationship between cause and effect, easy generalisations are flawed.