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Word vs. Lemma with Count Command


Mike Thigpen

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I need a little help sorting out options with the count command. I set up a Hebrew construct with the count command. In the options I can set the frequency range and then can select Lemmas, Words or Tags. I ran a couple of samples to see the difference, but am still a little confused. What is the difference between Words and Lemmas with the Count command?

 

I ran two samples, one using Lemmas and the other using Words with both set to search for items occurring 5000 times or more. The results differed in number by one item. The lemmas search produced 13 and the words search produced 14 items. One of the results in the words search was listed as "(No lexical form) = 8934". There are other differences as well, the most significant being that some of the same items show differing frequencies.

 

Any help in sorting these out would be much appreciated!

 

Mike

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I ran these searches directly in the Search window using [COUNT 5000-100000] and [COUNT 5000-100000 =i], and then looked at details: Analysis

 

The first search for lemmas finds all 13 lemmas that occur over 5000 times. If you use Set Analysis Display to add the inflected form under the lemma, you see that most forms of most of these words occur far less often than 5000 times. For example ‏אמר־1 occurs 5317 times, but the most common form ‏יֹּאמֶר occurs under 2000 times.

 

The second search finds only the very common words themselves (and all the suffixes that have no lexical form), so other than the prefixes it finds only the Name. Adding INFLECT to the analysis shows that the words are the same except for the vowelling.

 

So the search you will choose depends on whether you want to count the specific inflected forms, or the number of times the lemma is used. However, the default Analysis shows the resulting lemmas unless you reset it.

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Helen - Thanks so much! I had missed the option to have the inflected form show because I had selected to display the result counting down which only allows one item to be displayed. Changing that helped me see the difference clearly.

 

Many thanks,

Mike

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