Construct Search confusion

[Kristin]

I am pretty new to using this feature and am having some confusion about Construct Searches. My goal is to find ALL the instances in the ESV where מַלְאָךְ is NOT translated as "angel." Since I know you can only guarantee all the hits with the Hebrew, I did the search typing the Hebrew, then trying to say it does not match "angel" but the system complained that the words don't match. So I then tried it with the key number, but am having similar issues.

I know this is user error but I am just confused. I would appreciate clarification how to do this, hopefully using the Hebrew to make sure I get all the hits.

 

Thank you for your help and in case it is helpful (which it likely is not) here is a screenshot at my failed attempt.

Sincerely,
Kristin

[Mark Allison]

You're on the right track, but you'll need to use the "TEXT" column item to add the Hebrew word. In your current construct, Accordance is trying to find a Hebrew word in the ESVS, and since the ESVS only has English words, it fails immediately.

Also, both items will need to be placed in the same column, since you're looking for a single word that has two different criteria.

 

Note the asterisk after the word "angel." Without the asterisk (representing zero-to-infinite number of characters), you won't omit plural forms from your search.

 

Here's what you want: 

Edited May 27, 2021 by Mark Allison

[Mark Allison]

BTW, you can perform this same search without using a Construct Search (though I think the Construct Search is easier once you understand how it works):

 

[Robert Holmstedt]

Mark, I've never used this particular type of search, but I can imagine some useful tasks for it. So let me ask this: can you do a search like this with a tag like [Perfect Verb, not consecutive] in the HMT and any English verbs in the ESV that don't end in "-ed"? I'd be interested to see how many Perfect/Qatal verbs are take as something other than past tense. 

 

Thanks,

Robert

[Mark Allison]

I think this might get you close. The new TEXT command (introduced in version 13) is pretty cool 🙂

 

[Kristin]

9 hours ago, Mark Allison said:

You're on the right track, but you'll need to use the "TEXT" column item to add the Hebrew word. In your current construct, Accordance is trying to find a Hebrew word in the ESVS, and since the ESVS only has English words, it fails immediately.

Also, both items will need to be placed in the same column, since you're looking for a single word that has two different criteria.

 

Note the asterisk after the word "angel." Without the asterisk (representing zero-to-infinite number of characters), you won't omit plural forms from your search.

 

Here's what you want:

Hi @Mark Allison, Thank you for your help. How I had been doing it (getting the error) I had selected Word, but then selected the Hebrew text, so I figured that would work. Given what you wrote though, instead of Word I selected Text and this sort of worked, but I am still doing something wrong.

With the Word field it gives me a dropdown, but with the Text I need to type out the whole word, but since it is unpointed I got all sort of weird related words. Is there also a dropdown for the Text option, so I can start spelling רוה and it shows the options on the left and I can choose the right one?''

 

[Mark Allison]

Kristin: In the TEXT dialog box, select the "Insert Text" option, then select "Enter Lexical Forms". That will give you the drop-down list you're looking for.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Mark Allison

[Kristin]

8 hours ago, Mark Allison said:

Kristin: In the TEXT dialog box, select the "Insert Text" option, then select "Enter Lexical Forms". That will give you the drop-down list you're looking for.

 

Thank you! I got it now.

[Kristin]

Hi @Mark Allison, I am afraid I am still having issues. I ran a search to see when the ESV translates רוּחַ as something other than "spirit." (For example, Gen 1:2 compared with Gen 26:35, as one of many examples).

 

So I ran the search, and it is technically doing it, but it is finding other key words as well. Is this normal? I will attach a screenshot to clarify my confusion.

Thank you for your help,

Kristin

 

 

[JonathanHuber]

Your search is still the unpointed רוח, which means the search is finding other Hebrew words including a verb. Make sure your search has selected the noun.

[Kristin]

7 minutes ago, JonathanHuber said:

Your search is still the unpointed רוח, which means the search is finding other Hebrew words including a verb. Make sure your search has selected the noun.

 

Hi @JonathanHuber, thank you for help, but I am still doing something wrong. I selected "noun" but now it is finding all sorts of words that are not even connected to רוח, even highlighting the name of God. Here is a screenshot which will hopefully show my error.

Thank you,

Kristin

 

[JonathanHuber]

You might run into tagging errors in the ESV, but notice also the lack of an equals sign in your construct search. (Edit, sorry this image is huge.)

 

Edited May 28, 2021 by JonathanHuber

[Kristin]

29 minutes ago, JonathanHuber said:

You might run into tagging errors in the ESV, but notice also the lack of an equals sign in your construct search. (Edit, sorry this image is huge.)

 

 

Thank you! I ran it and it seems to be working now. So I think I finally understand.

Doing this though, a sort of practical problem just occurred to me.... when I do searches, I always work with the Greek and Hebrew since I know if you search the lexical form staring in English, you will miss a few words since once in awhile a word is not tagged.

 

Given that, that issue would apply here also, right? So it is finding all the words in Hebrew since I am starting with the Hebrew text, but it would only find the words which are translated differently in the ESV if the word itself is tagged in the ESV, and if it is not tagged, it won't be picked up in the search. Is this correct? I assume as much, but I wanted to check since I am so new to construct searching.

[JonathanHuber]

Yes, you’ve got it. The results of a TEXT search depend on the quality of the key number tagging. The construct window is just an alternate way of building a search instead of building it in the search bar, so this issue applies to both.

[Kristin]

Hi Jonathan, ok, thanks for confirming that. So it seems that the Construct Search is a great quick way to get a good idea of what is going on, but if I want to be really hardcore about it and check each instance, I would need to open the Hebrew and search for רוּחַ and then just check each verse manually.

Maybe this would be something the developers could look at (or maybe I am the only one who thinks this is a good idea....) but it would be helpful if doing that construct search (as an example), that if I say to run when רוּחַ is not translated as "spirit," that verses which are not tagged would also appear. Even though it did say "spirit," if it is not tagged it seems it could count as not translated as such. Then I could go through the searches and would only need to check those instances, compared to searching each one.
 

For example searching [KEY H7307] yields 375 results, while searching =רוּחַ yields 378 results. So now I have to search all 378 results, since I don't know which are the 3 missing verses. It would thus be helpful if the "not translated as spirit" would catch these 3 hits (since according to the key numbers it wasn't translated as "spirit") so then I am only reviewing 3 more verses instead of 378, if that makes sense.

[JonathanHuber]

Hmm. Your TEXT search isn't searching for the lemma then. I get 375 results both ways.

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by JonathanHuber

[Λύχνις Δαν]

I get what Kristin gets - 375 for רוּחַ and 378 for H7307 against ESVS.

 

You can find verses that are not selected by creating reference list from the verses in each of the Hebrew and ESVS tabs. That reveals that one case is in Mic 2:7. However the other two instances must be in verses that are either not part of the ESVS or which have more than one occurrence and not all are tagged. This latter case is hard to find directly.

 

Incidentally only JPS has 368 hits.

 

Thx

D

[Kristin]

25 minutes ago, JonathanHuber said:

Hmm. Your TEXT search isn't searching for the lemma then. I get 375 results both ways.

 

 

Hi @JonathanHuber,

You are searching it with the key numbers, which is restricting the Hebrew. If you just search the Hebrew  =רוּחַ you will get 378 instead of 375. I can show a screenshot with the 378.

 

4 minutes ago, Λύχνις Δαν said:

I get what Kristin gets - 375 for רוּחַ and 378 for H7307 against ESVS.

 

You can find verses that are not selected by creating reference list from the verses in each of the Hebrew and ESVS tabs. That reveals that one case is in Mic 2:7. However the other two instances must be in verses that are either not part of the ESVS or which have more than one occurrence and not all are tagged. This latter case is hard to find directly.

 

Incidentally only JPS has 368 hits.

 

Thx

D

 

@Λύχνις Δαν can you explain how to do this "reference list"? That sounds super helpful but I am not sure how to do it.  That is interesting about the JPS.

[Λύχνις Δαν]

I was wrong about JPS. If you search for the  [HMT-W4 =רוּחַ]  you get 368 (you do in ESV too) but with KEY search it's 375.

 

The ref list thing is this:

  in each results:

    cmd-A

    right click Add Selection to ... New Reference List Tab

 

  Rename each tab with a unique name, say HMT Refs and ESVS Refs

 

  Now open a new text tab, say HMT but whatever you prefer:

    In the search box do [CONTENTS HMT Refs] <NOT> [CONTENTS ESVS Refs]

 

  This will show you all the verses found in the HMT but not in the ESVS.

  You can reverse the order to see if there are any cases of the reverse. Not useful here but for some searches it is.

 

Thx

D

[Kristin]

Awesome! Thank you!