Trouble searching a root

[TYA]

Great day all.  Please advise regarding this search trouble (see attached).  Actually, here are two separate examples of the same issue.  Thanks as always.

Edited September 21, 2018 by TYA

[TYA]

And again with searching for a word in tools (attached).  Now I really hope that this is just my own error.

[Λύχνις Δαν]

This is Accordance's quick highlighting (I don't know its official name) which highlights all elements in the chunk of chars and then produces a list of roots from it for the search. If you expressly highlight the letters you want rather than just locating the cursor in the word then it will search just the root of the word you highlighted.

 

Thx

D

[TYA]

Phew!  That's a huge relief, D.  Thanks so much for explaining.  You are always so helpful.

[TYA]

But, if I may (@Accordance): what I described above shouldn't be the case.  That is counterintuitive.  I should be able to mouse over the entire word, right-click, and search "root."

 

I gently suggest that the way it is working now (again, unless I broke something) is misleading, or at best confusing.

Edited September 21, 2018 by TYA

[Timothy Jenney]

I'm sure you realize by now we define what a word is differently. We don't understand it to be a contiguous string of characters, but a distinct grammatical unit. If the string over which you are mousing (or have selected) includes multiple grammatical units, Accordance will search for the roots of all of them. Each plus sign (+) in your example above indicates a search for a different root. Now, if you have done this by accident (which I have), simply delete the extraneous roots and search for the one you intended.

[TYA]

I'm sure you realize by now we define what a word is differently...

 

Yes, that was one of the first things I acknowledged in my initial screenshot above.

 

If the string over which you are mousing (or have selected) includes multiple grammatical units, Accordance will search for the roots of all of them.

 

I think this may be where I'm alleging confusion.  As my initial screenshot shows, when I mouse over the lemma *within* the longer contiguous string of characters, Accordance does indeed highlight it distinctly from the prefix and suffix (which again, is to be expected, because those are treated as separate words); and this gives the impression that I will obtain information on just that portion of the word.  That's the crux of my argument here.

 

As far as functionality goes, I'm personally happy, since D. explained to me that I just need to manually highlight a portion of the word.  I can do that.

 

But let me ask: what about a person who doesn't know how to distinguish the root/lemma from prefixes and suffixes?  They are new to the language.  Am I right to say that they shouldn't be required to know what to manually highlight and click on?

 

This parallels my earlier threads in which I claimed that a person shouldn't have to know the grammatical function of a word or phrase in order to search it.  (I still hold to that).  I'm fine if Accordance' DNA is to parse things differently than other programs.  In principle, that's not the issue.  The issue comes down to searching. 

 

A person shouldn't have to know (though many of us may know) what part of speech a certain word or phrase constitutes in order to find it.  Again, I'm not trying to "tear down anything," but only suggesting to add options to it, in order to at least allow for the more simple approach for those who would appreciate it.

 

Now, if you have done this by accident (which I have), simply delete the extraneous roots and search for the one you intended.

 

Understandable, of course.  But easier said than done--at least for my computer.  When I tried to delete what I didn't want, my cursor behaved all funny, and it deleted stuff from the opposite position where it was.  (I don't have a unicode keyboard installed, and I'm not knowledgeable enough yet to know if this is why it behaved that way).

Edited September 21, 2018 by TYA

[Timothy Jenney]

Thanks for the response, TYA.

 

My response to your question about the person who doesn't know enough of the language to distinguish the lemma is simple: They should stick to working with key number-tagged texts until they do. If they need access to scholarly lexicons, they can also search those from a key-number tagged text.

 

Students of the Hebrew language (This is not an issue in Greek.) typically encounter some prefixes and suffixes in the first half-semester of taking a biblical language. There are four prefixes in the first verse of Genesis 1, for example, and the first suffixes appear at v. 11. Accordance clearly distinguishes both from the lexeme with its highlighting, reinforcing it with the details in the Instant Details window. Mousing over the various words in a parallel tagged translation will also highlight only the relevant lexeme; if it has a prefix or suffix attached, those parts of the character string are not highlighted.  The combination makes it very clear which part of a character string belongs to each word. All of our training explains these things very clearly. If the person still cannot figure out what is going on in very short order, they need to stick with working with the Bible in translation. Their not going to profit from a grammatical Hebrew language search anyway.

[TYA]

My response to your question...

 

Points well made, and well received.  Thank you.

Edited September 25, 2018 by TYA