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Comparing Three Different Texts to Compare Vocabulary


jwolters

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I am trying to compare the vocabulary of three different texts:

 

HMT-W4 (Isaiah)

DHNT (John's Epistles)

Qumran (1QS)

 

I am able to generate lists for each individual book, and I am able to generate a list of vocabulary common to Isaiah and John, Isaiah and 1QS, but not John and 1QS. I also noticed that I can compare DHNT with HMT-W4 but must use the HITS=Inflected command to compare HMT-W4 with DHNT. (I'm not sure why.)

 

I need to compare DHNT with Qumran but I get the same error. When I use HITS=Inflected I only get a small list of words, 24 and most of those were particles. I don't think that is accurate. The problem seems to be that it is searching only for inflected forms, not lemmas.

 

What do I need to do to compare Qumran with DHNT?

 

 

If that works, then how can I compare the results of my comparisons with each other so I can generate a comparison table:

In 1QS and Isaiah but not John

In 1QS and John but not Isaiah

In 1QS, John, and Isaiah

 

I appreciate any help you can give me so I can finish my research paper. Thanks.

 

 

Below is a log of my actions:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

DHNT window use [HITS HMT-W4] OK.

HMT-W4 window use [HITS DHNT] doesn't work.

I get a dialog box: "The window "HMT-W4" and the Search window in the selected [HITS] command, must both have search texts with grammatical tags (unless [HITS=Inflicted] is used.)"

Used [HITS=Inflected] and it worded. Returned same result as DNHT HITS HMT-W4.

 

Used [HITS=Inflected DHNT] and it found no verses.

I get a dialog box: "There are no verses in the current range of the "QUMRAN" text, which fit the current search entry."

 

All Qumran compared to All NT:

Used Qumran window [HITS=Inflected DHNT] returns only 24 words in common, most of them particles.

The problem seems to be that it is searching only for inflected forms, not lemmas.

 

Used DHNT window [HITS Qumran] and didn't work

I get a dialog box: "The HITS word list cannot include any character expression (a character immediately following ".")

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HI, while I don't claim expertise in the area, the DHNT is "inflected" but it's not "tagged". So you can't search for lemma's in it (which is why you are being asked to search for an inflected form when you do a search). From what you have described, that is exactly the problem you are facing in trying to compare vocabularies,

 

I must admit, I can't obviously see an answer to how to do what you want to do without something like the DHNT being tagged, but one of our brilliant users or staff may have an idea.

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Yes, the DHNT is not tagged. I think you will need to generate your list of words used in John (is it Epistles or Gospels or both) and manually compare them the old fashioned way. Not tagged means that it also does not have morphological separators between the prefixes (articles and particles and conjunctions), the main words, and the suffixes. So it will hardly find any words in common.

 

DHNT is a modern translation so I am surpised that your research depends on it. Perhaps you should compare Isaiah with John in the LXX/GNT or the Peshitta?

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It is a project Dr. John Monson has me working on for his class on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He wants to compare the Hebrew vocabulary between three different text types. Dr. Monson was hoping I would be able to put together a presentation of how to do this with Accordance, but without a tagged Hebrew New Testament text it seems we will have to revert to old fashioned leg work. Using the LXX would not work since the DSS texts we are interested in are only in Hebrew. Thanks for the response. Do you have any other suggestions?

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You could use rather literal translations and simply compare the English vocabulary. It isn't as accurate of course, but John presumably didn't write in Hebrew so the Hebrew New Testament is only a translation.

 

How about comparing John's Epistle in Greek with the LXX and then selecting the verses with hits in the LXX. Then use the CONTENTS command to take that set of verses in the HMT and compare them with Qumran?

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