4 replies to this topic

[Olivier Zalmanski]

Hi,

As you can see on the screenshots, I wanted to search the French expression "peut-il" (= "can he") in the SEG21 module.

I did three tests (on the screenshots, I limited my search to only one verse, for they be clearer): in the Word search bar, I put...
- "peut-il"
- "peut il"
- "peutil"

In French, an hyphen ("-") is equivalent to a space, so that the two first forms are equivalent, and only those two forms are correct – though the third form simply does not exist and is absolutely incorrect.
However, my search succeeded only in the third test... :-(

I also made testes with *"Saintesprit" / "Saint-esprit" [= "Saint esprit"], and the result is the same.
Conclusion: it seems that the hyphen is considered by Accordance as "nothing", though in French it is most of the time like a space (or simply like an hyphen!)...

Nevertheless, in addition to considering the hyphen as an hyphen AND as a space, it is good to continue to accept the hyphen as "nothing", because some words can be written either with or without hyphen in French.

Regards

Attached Files

•  Peut il.png   208.57K   6 downloads
•  Peut-il search.png   218.17K   8 downloads
•  Peutil search.png   200.3K   6 downloads

Edited by Olivier Zalmanski, 24 August 2012 - 03:07 AM.

[Helen Brown]

We can set the way the hyphen is treated in each module individually when we build it. So it is possible that we can treat it as a space, but I do not think we can treat is as either a space or nothing. It has to be consistent throughout that module.

[Olivier Zalmanski]

Then, for a French speaker, worth treat an hyphen as a space rather than nothing, because most of the time hyphen links 2 words that are independent and can also be separated by a space (see my example of "peut-il", which has the same meaning of "peut il" – although "peutil" means nothing and even doesn't exist...).
Anyway, in the case of the other words, a French speaker who doesn't succeed to find the word "entretemps" would search "entre-temps" or "entre temps", so that it doesn't matter if the hyphen is treated as a space.

[Helen Brown]

OK, when we next update our Bibles we will do our best.

[Olivier Zalmanski]

Thank you very much.
Sincerely