Differentiating accents when triple-clicking or amplifying word to lexicon?

[Abram K-J]

I placed this topic in "bug swatters," thinking it's a bug, but I'm more than happy if someone can show me whether I'm just doing something not quite right.

 

The Greek word in question is νομὸς, glossed by Accordance as

 

 

νομὸς νομός (νέμω) Noun masc sing nom field, pasture; Egyptian nome

--

 

and distinct from the much more common νόμος (only differentiated from the above by accent).

 

Accordance gets the word right in the instant details (see shot 1). But then when I hover over the word and press command--or amplify to LEH lexicon--νόμος comes up instead of νομὸς. As seen in the second screen shot, I scrolled to the second LEH entry (which did show up in the search results, even though it didn't automatically go to it) to make sure LEH actually has νομὸς, which it does.

 

So the natural thing would be for pushing command or triple-clicking or amplifying to go to νομὸς in LEH, but instead it goes to νόμος, even though the ID have it right.

 

[Helen Brown]

Accordance has always amplified like this, and it is deliberate. It is even more noticeable in Hebrew where there can be many homographs to a word. The reason is that we want to give the user the option of deciding which homograph is the correct one for the context. Sometime the lexicons don't agree, and you may not agree with them. Therefore the amplify search ignores the accents or vowels, and finds all the matching forms in the lexicon, letting you page down between them and decide for yourself.

[Abram K-J]

Thanks for the clarification. That makes sense.

 

I notice that the Instant Details make a decision (at least in the case I showed above) as to which homograph is the right one for the gloss. (And it seems to be the right one in this context.) Is this simply because the ID can only show one thing, and it has to be something, rather than, say, three things? And in that case, am I right that there is not a way for the command key (with a selected word) to show multiple options in the lexicon in the ID?

 

If that's true--wouldn't there be a way for the ID lexicon details to show the entry that matches with the Accordance gloss in the ID, if it has to pick one anyway? I realize Instant Details are just that--instant, and so can't do actual amplifying. I don't know if there's a way to amend it, but it would be nice for the lexicon entry pulled up in ID by hitting command to match the Accordance gloss in an instance like this.

Edited March 12, 2013 by AbramKJ

[Helen Brown]

The Glosses are on a separate database, and there is a sparate one for each lemma. However, we would need a massive and constantly updated database to match the lemmas accurately to each lexicon.

[Abram K-J]

Okay--I think this makes sense. What about (I suppose this makes for a feature request) a Preferences option to turn off whether or not amplifying to lexicons ignores accents and vowels? (Similar to the "Ignore" options under the "Compare Text" Preferences.)

[Helen Brown]

You have the option in Preferences: General to have it look for the verse reference as well as the lemma. In many cases this will go to the correct lemma. If the verse is not cited with that lemma, the reference is ignored, and you get all the lemmas. That preference can be overridden by pressing shift as you amplify.

[Abram K-J]

Okay--that's helpful. As you note, it won't cover cases where the lexicon entry doesn't cite a verse, but it's a start. (And I'm not sure if it does much for Instant Details.)

 

I have no idea how much work is involved in something like a Preferences option to turn off whether or not amplifying to lexicons ignores accents and vowels (or a similar option for ID shown when pressing command--what I'm really after), but I would find it nice. Perhaps I've just gotten accustomed to other software where the accents and vowels were not ignored, but that option would make this good software program (Accordance) even better, I think.

I didn't realize till today that it was a related issue, but part of the issue has already come up on the forums, related to definite articles, etc., in BDAG.

[Anon]

While the request seems plausible for Greek, Hebrew is entirely different issue. Even for Greek, I believe the interpreter should have, as Helen noted, the choice on homographs.

[Abram K-J]

The connection I've made over the last two days is that regardless of any other differences between Greek and Hebrew, the same setting in Accordance leads to similar behavior in the Instant Details for both languages when pressing command on a word (whether it's an accent or pointing that is stripped). I take Helen's (and your) point about an interpreter's choice on homographs--my request now is simply that the user also have the choice (i.e., a setting in Preferences) as to whether or not they have to make the choice on homographs. That Accordance already makes the decision in its own glosses is useful, even if that's a separate database.

 

I doubt I'm the only person who finds the essentially blank lexical entries in the ID (when pressing command) to slow down rapid reading through the text, when I don't want to stop to amplify but want to get, for example, the word frequency count from a lexicon. It essentially renders the command keystroke unusable in instances with multiple homographs. That said, I often hear in these forums that the staff and developers have a lot to work on, and I respect that, so I realize this may or may not be something that Accordance chooses to address through a Preferences option or other means. I hope it's at least considered.