Help understanding Accordance's approach to interlinears

[Brian Phillips]

In reading this post, I am really confused about the approach Accordance takes with interlinears. 

 

Is it a bug or a feature that each word in an English phrase is mapped one-to-one with the underlying Greek—so that the Greek word is actually repeated several times to accommodate the English. For example, Acts 13.2 in NIV11, "ἀφορίζω" appears twice under "set" and then again under "apart", but ἀφορίζω does not appear twice in any Greek text.

 

So what Accordance calls an interlinear isn't what I think of as an interlinear. I could be wrong, but I thought an interlinear should be the real underlying Greek text (where ἀφορίζω appears once and would be mapped to the phrase "set apart". There are more peculiarities with the way this mapping is done, such as "set" and "Set" listed as separate hits. My main question here is different than in the linked post—I would like to know, "Is this a benefit somehow? Is there something I'm just not seeing about how this approach could benefit my searches?" This issue comes up in other English bibles with interlinears too, such as NASB95.

 

There's another issue in Acts 13.2 with the interlinear in some bible versions where the phrase "the Holy Spirit said", the lex field for "said" has both λεγω and ειπον. I understand that ειπον is an aorist form of λεγω, but having both in the lex field causes there to be no results when right clicking and searching for key number or trying a Word Study. Here also, while I think these are "bugs" or at least a poor method of tagging, I would like to know if perhaps I'm just ignorant of a benefit for doing things this way? 

 

If these (in my view) "oddities" do not have a benefit, will they ever be fixed? As it is, I'm not sure I can trust the counts in my search results in Accordance when I use any English bible for searching. 

 

 

 

 

 

[ukfraser]

Brian Im guessing its because you have the niv which is phrase tagged. 
 

useful blog by rick on tagging:
https://www.accordancebible.com/NIV11-GKE/

Compare it with the nrsv which has strongs which doesnt have anything tagged to 'set'

 

 

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by ukfraser

[Brian Phillips]

17 minutes ago, ukfraser said:

Brian Im guessing its because you have the niv which is phrase tagged. 
https://www.accordancebible.com/NIV11-GKE/

Compare it with the nrsv which has strongs which doesnt have anything tagged to 'set'

 

 

 

 

@ukfraser Thanks for your input. What you show here brings up another oddity. In the highlight for the NRSVS, "apart" is mapped to both ἀφορίζω, δή. Again, this results in not being able to Search For the Key Number or doing a Word Study for the Key Number. While the actual Greek isn't repeated, the mapping is incorrect.

[ukfraser]

Strongs Tagging Its consistent in esv and kjv with the nrsv.

Edited August 4, 2023 by ukfraser

[ukfraser]

In your original screenshot you had g2036. Not sure if this is g/k or strongs you were searching on but below are results for g/k but searching was not as straight forward as it should have been as despite setting the search for gk numbers,  it wouldnt find G2036, but was happy to find the gk number when i entered just 2036 without the 'G' prefix. 

 

but i will let others who know more about tagging and word study chip in but i think there it is worth looking at the blog on the niv enhanced tagging using the link above as rick goes into some of the background on tagging.

Edited August 4, 2023 by ukfraser

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

In terms of the screen shot of the word study, this is a bug, or at least a syntax error. Connecting two key numbers with @ will never produce results, because no key number has a second key number. Yet that’s the syntax word study tries to use when an English word is tagged with two key numbers. See my comments in this thread: 

 and my feature request here: 

 

 

[Brian Phillips]

22 hours ago, ukfraser said:

Strongs Tagging Its consistent in esv and kjv with the nrsv.

 

In all my bibles (those I would use, ESV, NRSV, NASB95, NKJV, NIV, HCSB, CSV), the CSV appears to be the best tagged bible — on first cursory glance. I'll look more at it later. My very quick review on Acts 13.2 looked great, with none of the problems discussed above.

BTW, in answer to your question about G/K or Strong's, it looks like the only bible I would use that has G/K is the NIV11.
 

Edited August 5, 2023 by Brian Phillips

[Brian Phillips]

21 hours ago, ukfraser said:

In your original screenshot you had g2036. Not sure if this is g/k or strongs you were searching on but below are results for g/k but searching was not as straight forward as it should have been as despite setting the search for gk numbers,  it wouldnt find G2036, but was happy to find the gk number when i entered just 2036 without the 'G' prefix. 

 

but i will let others who know more about tagging and word study chip in but i think there it is worth looking at the blog on the niv enhanced tagging using the link above as rick goes into some of the background on tagging.

 

My original screenshot was from the NRSVS (Strong's) under the word "said" in Acts 13.2 (The Holy Spirit said, G3004, G2036). I was pointing out there that the word said has both eipon and lego in lex field, which gives no result in a Word Study or Search For Key Number. The NIV11 uses G/K and doesn't have this problem—it matches "said" to one word in the lex field ("lego", G3306).  

 

The problem in the NIV11 is it's double usage of aphorizo under "Set apart". Plus it treats Set and set (upper and lower case) as different results.

[Brian Phillips]

@Lorinda H. M. Hoover Thanks for the input. I'm glad to know there is already a feature request. Do you know if there is a place on the site here to check which feature requests are being acted on... and possible a date for expected completion?

I couldn't see your first link due to permission issues.

 

[ukfraser]

The first link is a beta thread so you probably dont have permission

 

Edited August 5, 2023 by ukfraser

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

Sorry about that first link. I wasn’t paying attention to what forum it is a part of.  It essentially covers the same territory as the feature request.  I do think there is a bug here, too, in terms of the unworkable syntax that the word study feature generates when one word is keyed to more than one key number. 

[c. stirling bartholomew]

On 8/4/2023 at 7:56 AM, Lorinda H. M. Hoover said:

In terms of the screen shot of the word study, this is a bug, or at least a syntax error. Connecting two key numbers with @ will never produce results, because no key number has a second key number. Yet that’s the syntax word study tries to use when an English word is tagged with two key numbers. See my comments in this thread: 

 and my feature request here: 

 

 

I have a modest suggestion. Abandon the use Strong's numbers. Use the lexical form of the original word.

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

5 minutes ago, c. stirling bartholomew said:

I have a modest suggestion. Abandon the use Strong's numbers. Use the lexical form of the original word.

That’s hardly a modest request!  Making that change would be huge. But it also doesn’t address the issue of the syntax of the word study fun toon attempts to use: the same nul result would happen with lexèmes as currently happens with key numbers. 

[Brian Phillips]

I take back my positive review of CSB's tagging. Here's a common issue in all the tagged texts -- they can't do "zero to many" tags. For example, Acts 13:8 in the CSB (and NASB) have this English phrase, "... to turn the proconsul away".  Here, "to turn ... away" is the English phrase that should map to the Greek, but in English the phrase is split by "the proconsul". So the system Accordance uses is to put the mapping with one of the words only (as discussed, in other texts the system duplicates the Greek instead of mapping to one word only). Here they mapped διαστρέφω to "away". Not only is the system inadequate but the choice of tagged English word is less than best because διαστρέφω's basic meaning is "to turn, to pervert".

 

Ideally (IMO), the English "to turn away" should map like this: "to" is somehow visually tied to "turn" (another product uses an arrow under "to". And "turn" would have the underlying Greek, leaving "away" to also use a glyph that points back to "turn". The other product uses an ordered numbering system for the Greek words, and in the case of "away", it is mapped to the number 14 and with an arrow pointing backward to "turn"/διαστρέφω.  (διαστρέφω is the 14th Greek word of the verse in the underlying text).

 

Thank you for all who gave input. I hope the issues raised in this thread make their way back to the leaders of the development team. After discovering the method / system / flaws in the way Accordance tags texts, I don't feel this product serves me as well as it should or could (and I just put more money into several resources). Sadly, the tagging issues, while most important to me, are only one of the many issues I've had with Accordance. It's not my aim to merely air criticism or promote another product; I'm really hoping leadership at Accordance takes notice of this and other issues and goes "all in" on fixing them. As for now, the money I have for investing in resources is going to another product, even though I prefer to work in Accordance because it is snappy, lower on resources and I like the customer service, company and people of the company. If these issues were fixed, I feel Accordance could truly help me to focus on my studies. As it is, I spend my time in OCD fashion doing "beta testing".

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 5, 2023 by Brian Phillips

[c. stirling bartholomew]

1 hour ago, Lorinda H. M. Hoover said:

That’s hardly a modest request!  Making that change would be huge. But it also doesn’t address the issue of the syntax of the word study fun toon attempts to use: the same nul result would happen with lexèmes as currently happens with key numbers. 

 

The word modest was a failed attempt at irony. In Accordance the numbers first arrived with the NASB glossary. I am speculating that Precepts and BSF probably perpetuated the predominance of Strong's numbers In North America. (Second hand information reported by friends who participated.)  I can imagine how keys might be useful but having never used them I don't have to abandon them. We come up with methods based on the tools we have at our disposal. Accordance 13 construct panes look very complicated and confusing. I don't have to use them. Some of the command line search syntax I see here looks worse than 360/370 assembly language.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 5, 2023 by c. stirling bartholomew

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

Thanks for the discussion! I am forwarding this onto our leadership team to read.

[Tim Planche]

sorry to ask a silly question - but I can't seem to find out much a quick  on line search....

 

But wanted to ask what searches are Strong's and G/K numbers most useful for in Accordance?

 

I understand what Strong's numbers  are and what is a concordance ( and just had an interesting online read about the history of James Strong's original 1890 concordance).

 

However, I have never used them myself in searches and not sure I quite get the purpose of using them as a search term - so sorry for my ignorance

 

don't want to bother - I know accordance relatively well and so just a brief explanation of a couple of use cases would be great or signposting to an online explanation of use 

 

many thanks indeed -

[ukfraser]

Tim, i dont use it very often but i find it a quick way to see how its been translated throughout a translation and to then compare with other translations. I dont have analytics on the ipad. The screenshot below is not a good example but it shows a few of how its been used in the nrsv, niv and esv plus the number of hits. 
 

it can also useful to find something in a lexicon or dictionary plus if i come across a word, its an alternative quick way to find it.

 

but using analytics in the full fat version can add so much more. 

 

(ps and its certainly not a silly question as others will use search very differently but i would suggest you check out the blog where i put a link in my first post above!)

Edited August 6, 2023 by ukfraser

[Tim Planche]

thanks a million UKfraser - I think I now get it and the main purpose as you say seems to be to compare English (or Chinese, modern Hebrew or Spanish) translations - it looks a bit like use of the TEXT command.

 

 

I must say the tutorial was great - though I can't seem to get my Accordance to behave like the search in the tutorial

 

the use of the @ connector does not behave as expected

 

[KEY  elohim] @ [KEY sub]  - returns the error message below and not the results seen in the tutorial

 

so seems to be behaving differently to how it was described in the tutorial - also couldn't get the tag [KEY not] to work either in the NIV (2011) with enhanced G/K numbering 

[ukfraser]

Tim, My searching is very basic but the use of the @ key might be linked to what Lorinda is referring to above. Also the link is to an earlier version when the niv enhanced was launched but hopefully others will chip in when the other time zones have had their early morning coffee hit.

Edited August 6, 2023 by ukfraser

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

Wow, I didn't know about some of the options/power built into the NIV-G/K with phrase tagging, even though I've had it since it came out.  Thanks, ukfraser for the link to the video, and Tim Planche for the questions!  I also can't reproduce the search mentioned in the video.

 

@Nathan Parker:  Do you have any insight on this?  Have things changed since the phrase tagging was released?  is there another way to do the search mentioned near the end of the video?  

[Brian Phillips]

18 hours ago, Lorinda H. M. Hoover said:

Wow, I didn't know about some of the options/power built into the NIV-G/K with phrase tagging, even though I've had it since it came out.  Thanks, ukfraser for the link to the video, and Tim Planche for the questions!  I also can't reproduce the search mentioned in the video.

 

@Nathan Parker:  Do you have any insight on this?  Have things changed since the phrase tagging was released?  is there another way to do the search mentioned near the end of the video?  

@ukfraser I don't see the link to the video. Would you mind reposting?

[Brian Phillips]

2 minutes ago, Brian Phillips said:

@ukfraser I don't see the link to the video. Would you mind reposting?

nevermind -- got it.

[ukfraser]

I edited my first response after a few more posts to try to make it clear that the link was to a blog rather than the product so you may well have missed the link when you read it initially (sorry). 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I'll ask on the phrase tagging.