Literal search in Research

[TYA]

Great day friends,

 

I need help with two things here:

 

1) Please advise on why I'm getting these confusing search results for וַיְבָרֶךְ in Gen 1:22 when I use "Research."  (Accordance Team, I need real help understanding this, as I keep happening on this frustration).

 

2) If the best I can do in order to get the predictable / expected search results I want is to run the same search multiple different ways (grammatical, literal, literal+"=", literal+"*"), then please advise on how to best integrate a little cheat sheet within the Accordance program itself.  Some kind of User Tool?

 

I want it to pop open with a shortcut, or else something very quickly.  I know I could make a cheat sheet many ways outside of Accordance, but I just want something within the program to make it feel more "at home."

 

But really, I'm more concerned / frustrated with #1.    Thanks.  See attached.  You are always so helpful.

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Hi TYA,

 

  The first screen shot is because the a grammatical search treats the search term as though it is one lemma which is not how the string of characters is handled in Gen 1:22 in the HMT. There it is two words. Putting a space in between would work but lose the other hits - well a space and picking the lex forms but separating them into two words is the key thing.

 

  The second is the way to go. It will do a literal search for the string of characters and find what you need.

 

  The third hits one of the important, documented quirks, shall I say, about the literal search:

 

If any special search characters (such as wild cards) or commands (such as [AND]) are used, the search switches to a grammatical one.
 

  While not explicitly stated here if you copy the string you have from Gen 1:22 into a LETTERS search on the HMT-W4 you get the hits you would expect. Add a prefix of an = and you get a switch to a WORDS search and a popup dialog asking which lexemes you want. That said I'm not strictly sure why you tried that after the second attempt. Was there some specific thing you were trying to do ?

 

  A User Tool would be the way to go for a cheat sheet inside Accordance I think. Of course a web based one could be used from an Accordance Web Browser tab if you were online.

 

Thx

D

[TYA]

The first screen shot is because the a grammatical search treats the search term as though it is one lemma which is not how the string of characters is handled in Gen 1:22 in the HMT. There it is two words. Putting a space in between would work but lose the other hits...

 

So let me understand: the distinction you are making regarding my grammatical screenshot above is that tagged texts treat prefixes and suffixes as separate words, while untagged texts don't, and therefore my grammatical search returned only untagged texts?  Is that correct?  (Yes, I've already been told about prefixes being treated separately, but I'm just trying to hammer down the specific search conditions that yield results with this particular factor).

 

The second is the way to go. It will do a literal search for the string of characters and find what you need.

 

Yes, in general, I'm most comfortable with the literal search (although I still don't like its inability to give me only what I want between the whitespaces, considering that it adds all manners of prefixes and suffixes that I may not want).  But yes, literal search is generally what I prefer, because it seems to work most consistently between tagged and untagged texts.

 

Again, I'm trying to find out the major points of distinction when it comes to searching (including between tagged and untagged texts, because I have lots of both), so I can write them down once and for all and make real progress with searching confidently.  If I have to perform two different kinds of searches to cover all the bases I want, I just want to learn what those different searches are, and then notate them for the future (though again, I don't prefer to have to duplicate effort).

 

That said I'm not strictly sure why you tried that after the second attempt. Was there some specific thing you were trying to do ?

 

Yes: I wanted to see vowel-specific results from *all* my Hebrew texts (at least those that use vowels) at one time.  But I neglected the differentiation of how Accordance treats tagged texts from untagged texts (am I still on the right page here?)

 

Let me get this part straight: My "literal+=" (third screenshot) returned only DHNT hits because it is my only untagged and vowelized text containing the exact string of consonants with the vowels shown here: וַיְבָרֶךְ  ... Is that correct?  Did I properly comprehend the distinctions taking place in the search engine?

 

Now, if I'm correct with this, let's go back to the concept of using the = sign to find vowel-specific words (but now, remembering that tagged texts must have prefixes and suffixes separated out).  If so, then please explain why I see this when I space out the prefix in the tagged Hebrew text (see attached)?  (Keep in mind, I'm only focused on search functionality in the Research window for this post).

Edited November 15, 2018 by TYA

[Λύχνις Δαν]

So let me understand: the distinction you are making regarding my grammatical screenshot above is that tagged texts treat prefixes and suffixes as separate words, while untagged texts don't, and therefore my grammatical search returned only untagged texts?  Is that correct?  (Yes, I've already been told about prefixes being treated separately, but I'm just trying to hammer down the specific search conditions that yield results with this particular factor).

 

 Yes this is correct. Hammering out exactly how this all works was part of the reason I wrote the crib sheets I did, by the way.

 

 

Yes: I wanted to see vowel-specific results from *all* my Hebrew texts (at least those that use vowels) at one time.  But I neglected the differentiation of how Accordance treats tagged texts from untagged texts (am I still on the right page here?)

 

Ah ok, so I get that but another thing noted in the docs is that Hebrew searches in their basic form are consonantal. You only get vowel support with modifiers like " and =, and those cause searches to be treated as grammatical when they run against tagged texts. So you have an interaction between how the search is written and whether a text is tagged or not, which determines how the search is applied to any given text in a collection.

 

Let me get this part straight: My "literal+=" (third screenshot) returned only DHNT hits because it is my only untagged and vowelized text containing the exact string of consonants with the vowels shown here: וַיְבָרֶךְ  ... Is that correct?  Did I properly comprehend the distinctions taking place in the search engine?

 

Yes this is I believe correct, and is certainly consistent with the tests that I've run.

 

thx

D

[TYA]

D., all very helpful answers and insights from you.  I was studying your crib sheets last night again, by the way.  As mentioned above, I want to store my notes in the easiest place within Accordance, since they are, after all, unique to Accordance.  I will probably need to learn some more about User Tools, if this is your best recommendation for that task.  Thanks

[Silas Marrs]

Do you not find User Notes useful for storing notes?

[Λύχνις Δαν]

Hi Silas,

 

The crib sheets we are talking about are for documenting search commands that might be used for searching anything. They are not verse or text specific. That's why I suggested a UT.

 

Thx

D