Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Peter wrote:
> This prompts a specific question about search facilities. Many 
> products claim "flexible search facilities", but what do they mean? 
> What searches can different products do? What searches would be 
> desired for inclusion in a product under development?

I use the Logos package (level 4, though I don't use all the English 
versions in it) and it does most of what you describe below:

> Let's look at some specific examples of searches relevant to current 
> threads. Can anyone name any tool which is able to do the following 
> searches:
> 
> 1. Find every example of the word LO) immediately followed (with 
> maqqef OR space) by any verb in the YIQTOL form - i.e. mixed search on 
> base word form and grammatical tag with wildcard.

Yes.  I've done this with several combinations.  Getting the syntax 
just right takes a little practice (as with any program, the manual is 
fairly confusing) but it can be done.

> 2. Find every example of a verb in the imperative followed by a verb 
> in the WEYIQTOL form and 2nd person, where the verbs are not 
> immediately conjoined and there may be an intervening verse division 
> but there is no other verb in between. (Let me know if your software 
> can do even part of this!)

Yes.  The trick is to use the "afterword" or "beforeword" operator 
and specify a maximum number of words that can separate the two 
keys, e.g. "verb imperative [it has special keys for this but they are 
chosen via an easy dialog box] BEFOREWORD 10 (waw AND 
(verb impf 2ms OR verb impf 2fs))" would give occurrences where  
the weyiqtol is 10 words or less after the imperative.  As I said, the 
syntax is a mite tricky, but it can do the job (most of the time).

> 3. Any other searches which anyone has wanted or tried to do but found 
> that their software cannot manage?

Basically, I've discovered that anything that is tagged in the Hebrew 
morph database can be found, it's just a matter of cursing at the 
search syntax enough to figure out exactly how to phrase it :-)

> These are the sorts of searches that we really need to come near to 
> settling the sorts of discussions we have been having on this list 
> recently, and to advance understanding of Hebrew verb forms and other 
> grammatical issues above the word level. So I would be really 
> interested to know what is available.

This is the only package I've used, and I got a special deal on it 
from a friend who sells it (level 4 for the price of level 3).  Level 3 is 
all that's needed to work with the Hebrew text, and I think it's 
comparably priced.  The two biggest drawbacks that I've found are 
1) the sometimes confusing search syntax, and 2) the Hebrew font 
and database uses a proprietary character mapping that doesn't 
resemble anything else I've seen (this is also true of the Greek 
database).  It would have been nice if they had used CCAT 
mapping or something similar, it would have made it a lot easier to 
copy and paste.  The biggest advantage that I know of is the ability 
to mix morphological keys with specific words, phrases etc.  
Setting it up to do this is also a little tricky, but once you figure it 
out the first time it's fairly easy from then on.

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.