15 replies to this topic

[Ken Simpson]

Hi,

I was playing around with highlighting search results. I did a couple of searches [ANY IMPERATIVE], [ANY INDICATIVE] and got what seems to be reasonable results. (All confined to the book of Ephesians)

 

However, when I changed it to [ANY VERB] I only got 6 hits! 

 

 F5B164A6-7549-4194-B9CC-B79704387A9F.png   266.12K   14 downloads

 

Now I KNOW that is incorrect, but to be sure I changed the search to [VERB] and got 327 hits. Now that's more like it.

 

 Accordance.png   189.6K   9 downloads

 

So, why the difference? What am I missing in the logic here?

Thanks

[Daniel Semler]

Hi Ken,

 

  Just happened to be playing with construct searches and figured I'd try your example also.

  Doing VERB imperative as a Greek construct against a custom range for Ephesians gets me 41 hits in 33 verses in GNT-T. Doing what you did below [ANY VERB] got me what you got - 6 hits in 5 verses. Hmmm..... but doing [ANY IMPERATIVE] agrees with my construct search. OK, my official diagnosis is that I do not understand. I redid your [VERB] search as a construct and got your 327 hits also.

 

  Ok so one thing that may be going on is perhaps a peculiarity in the tagging. I had a look at the six cases you get from [ANY VERB] and they all have '(verbal)' in the tagging notes. I don't know what this means particularly but it does not appear in at least some of the cases I spot checked from the larger result set from [VERB].

 

  No idea if this is even remotely relevant but thanx for the search exercise.

 

Thx

D

 

 

[Ken Simpson]

Thanks Daniel. Maybe Acc isn't searching the part of speech tag when it searches "any tag"?

 

Hmmm....time to play a little more until we get the definitive answer. 

[James Tucker]

I may be wrong, but I believe the ANY is for tag detail, not the tag itself. Thus, a detail would be feminine plural.

[Daniel Semler]

That's how I read the doc. on ANY. Does that mean that we should be seeing an error in a case like Ken's ?

[Helen Brown]

There is no error. The actual part of speech cannot be defined in the [ANY] as the whole point of it is to look for a tag which may apply to several parts of speech such as [ANY accusative]. If you want any verb, you search for [VERB].

[Daniel Semler]

Hi Helen, that's rather what I suspected. Thus is it not an error that Accordance should report to the user, as VERB is really not valid input in [ANY VERB] ? Or does it have some valid meaning ? It does after all return results which means some part of the code is trying to produce a search from the input.

 

Thx

D

[Ken Simpson]

Thanks for the help on this. Reading the help does not make this clear (IMHO) and the search [ANY VERB] looks like it should return any verb form. However, I am satisfied with the explanation given. Thanks again!

 

From the help - the first line is the closest it gets to saying it doesn't search for the part of speech, just the "tag detail"

 

[Use the ANY Tag]

 

To search for a tag detail from any part of speech:

1. Right-click in the Argument Entry box and choose Enter Tag>Any Tag. The following tag is placed in the Argument Entry box: [ANY ?].
   
   You can also press Shift––Y to place [ANY ?] in the Argument Entry box.
2. Replace the question mark with enough of a word to distinguish it from other details in the same part of speech.
3. Example: [ANY fem plur] will find feminine plural forms of nouns, verbs, and adjectives, etc.
4. Example: In Greek [ANY imp] is not accepted since Accordance cannot tell whether the imperfect or imperative is meant, however [ANY ind]does find indicative verbs and indefinite adjectives.
5. Searching by case with the ANY tag does not include prepositions or improper prepositions, since the case tag for prepositions is the case they take (on the following word), not the true case of the word.

[James Tucker]

I think what the Help is missing is a clear indication that Accordance, at least when implementing a search for [ANY ?], makes a difference in the items of a "tag". While often times it is handy to say the "morphological tag", such a description here blurs the information structure of the tag. The tag contains details of such information, and what is excluded from this is the part of speech detail.

 

Thus, the reason why Accordance returns a valid search for [ANY Verb] is that "Verb" is a short form for "Verbal", a tagging detail for verbal adjectives (typically with the -ατος morpheme—see Smyth). Thus, Accordance is functioning just as expected.

[Daniel Semler]

Thanx for the explanation James. Yes I think clarification in the doc. would be helpful.

[Helen Brown]

Deborah has noted the request, and will update this section for the next release of the Help.

[Daniel Semler]

Many thanx Helen, D.

[Deborah Hemstreet]

Hi All,

 

I am in the process of updating the Help. Unfortunately my knowledge of grammar at this level is a bit fuzzy. So I would appreciate your help. For the above cited help topi, I've added the following sentence:

 

"The [ANY] tag looks for any tag details connected with a word (morphological tag), but excludes the part of speech detail."

 

The help then continues as cited.

 

I then added the following example:

 

"Example [ANY VERB]:   In this case, VERB is equivalent to "Verbal" and Accordance looks for the tagging detail for verbal adjectives."

 

Could you review this and advise if this is correct? If not, please tell me how you would change the text and I will do so. I want to make sure this issue is understood by others, but since this is not a feature I work with, and grammar is not my expertise, I need your help to make sure others who WILL understand this -- do! <grin>

 

Thanks in advance.

[Helen Brown]

I think [ANY VERB] is going to confuse people. It would be better to say [ANY Accus] to find Nouns, Adjectives, or Participles in the Accusative, or [ANY fem] to find all the feminine words.

[Daniel Semler]

Hi Deborah,

 

  First, thanx for looking into this.

 

  I've just gone over all this and a bunch of the doc. again to refresh my memory. I had a really long response that was incorrect in places but got me to the following. I'll spare you the details.

 

  I think in the case in this post confusion arose because ANY looked like an auxiliary of some kind on the part of speech when in fact its a wildcard. And because VERB is a valid value for the part of speech and the details, though alas with differing meaning. If I was to offer any input on your change above I would say this. Rather than "The [ANY] tag looks for any tag details connected with a word (morphological tag), but excludes the part of speech detail." I would replace the bold with "without constraining the part of speech" or some such thing. Thus, ANY stands in for all (or any) parts of speech, is a wildcard.

 

  In fact it looks to me like the first word, and it only, is always the part of speech (the doc almost says this) and that when one does not want to constrain it one must use something to indicate that and "ANY" is that beastie.

 

  Please don't assume I know anything. I'm just trying to help out. Please check for sanity of my comments with those who know. I would not want factually incorrect information based on my lunatic theories to gain any currency.

 

Thx

D

Edited by Daniel Semler, 16 February 2013 - 12:07 AM.

[Deborah Hemstreet]

Hi Daniel and Helen, Thanks for the feeback. Done! Debbie