Abecedarian¶
abecedarian · letter · validated
A text whose successive lines or words begin with successive letters of the alphabet, from A through to Z.
Provenance¶
- Source: Ancient Hebrew acrostic psalms; Lamentations
- Attribution:
traditional— classical or folk; no single origin to name - Checkability:
self— decidable from the text and its parameters alone - Attested:
codified— formulated as a rule by a tradition rather than declared by an author
Details¶
- Kind: restrictive
- Languages: en
- Requires:
tokens,alphabet,fold_diacritics - Deterministic: yes
- Also known as: abecedarius
- In other languages: Abecedarium (de), Abécédaire (fr)
Prompt hint¶
Write lines beginning with A, then B, then C, and so on to Z.
Parameters¶
| Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
fold_diacritics |
boolean | True |
Treat accented letters as their base letter, and ß as ss. |
start |
— | None |
First letter; inferred if unset. |
unit |
string | line |
What carries a letter. |
Examples¶
alphabet-of-lines¶
en — this text satisfies the procedure.
Ash falls
Birds go
Cold comes
Dusk stays
Parameters: start='a'
Source: constructed example; the form is ancient, see the catalogue entry
out-of-order¶
en — this text does not satisfy the procedure.
Ash falls
Cold comes
Birds go
Parameters: start='a'
Source: constructed counterexample
umlaut-start¶
de — this text satisfies the procedure.
Ozean ruht
Paradies wacht
Quelle blinkt
Parameters: start='ö'
Source: constructed example; start="ö" folds to "o" (index 14) — the unfixed code fell back to index 0 and reported every line wrong, not vacuously right (ADR 0035)
kuhlmann-guldne-sterbens-abc¶
de — this text satisfies the procedure.
Als Gott den Adam schuf zum Fürsten unser Welt, [...]
Beschmertzt stund Adam, Ev; beschmertzt stund di Natur: [...]
Christ sprach zum Christ sich ein, der Jesueln vor schuf; [...]
Source: Quirinus Kuhlmann, "Das güldne sterbens ABC der Achtgestalt und des Erstanfanges" (Der Kühlpsalter, Book 5, Amsterdam 1686; 15./75. Kühlpsalm), critical text ed. Robert L. Beare, Tübingen 1971, vol. 2, pp. 76–83, via Zeno.org (Baroque orthography preserved). The excerpt is stanza-openings (stanza-initial, not line-initial) — successive numbered strophes open A, B, C, … and as excerpted with [...] joining stanza-first lines, this text is line-initial at the textual boundaries it supplies.