How do you use one of the syntatical databases in the NT to find occurrences of a compound subject with a singular verb? For example in 1 Thess 3:11 we have both God and Jesus as the subject with the singular verb direct.
Thanks,
Charles
Hi Charles
I used the Cascadia Syntax Graphs to take a stab at this.
[Note: If we are able to get the Cascadia Syntax Graphs of the LXX (http://www.logos.com/products/prepub/details/6618) and of the Apostolic Fathers (http://www.logos.com/products/prepub/details/6617) out of pre-pub, we could use the same query to search those databases too!]
I made a few assumptions; first was that there is some sort of conjunction explicitly joining the compound subject, and second that component order (SV or VS?) didn't matter; that's what the "Unordered Group" is all about. Here's a picture of the query, which located 128 hits (though items like Mt 3.5, which has a three-part compound subject, is reported twice). One could get more specific with agreement between the nominal phrases, but I figured it was close enough as-is.
For reference purposes, here's the Cascadia annotation of 1Th 3.11 (with the compound subject highlighted)
Similarly to Rick I looked at this using OpenText
The OpenText analysis of this clause is:
You will see that there are three word groups in the subject - one for "God", one for "our Father" and one for "our Lord Jesus".
I put together a corresponding search as below:
As per Rick's comments it would be possible to add in other constraints but hopefully this provides the basis of what you need.
When I run this search on the New Testament I get 18 results.
Hope this helps
Graham
Thanks for this, Graham.
I thought I'd OpenText-ify the query I did for Cascadia and look at some of the differences between that and your query.
Before I get into that, though, I wanted to mention that 1Th 3.11 ends up being a good example of how Syntactic annotations can differ. If you look at how both Cascadia and OpenText.org analyze the subject, you see that OpenText.org breaks it into three units ("word groups" in OpenText-ese), "God", "and our Father", "and our Lord Jesus Christ". Cascadia, however, reads it as two units ("nominal phrases" in Cascadia-ese): "our God and Father" and "our Lord Jesus Christ".
The question here then is are there three 'units', "God himself", "our Father" and "our Lord Jesus Christ" with the connections equating the three items (OpenText.org, it appears) or are the two nominal phrases, the first of which is itself a compound, "our God and Father himself" and second being "our Lord Jesus Christ"? Most English translations seem to take the latter option (Cascadia). Might be helpful to compare translations and evaluate some commentaries on this.
Back to the query. Since a "compound" subject would mean a subject where two 'units' are joined (likely by conjunction), my OpenText.org query only looks for two word groups where yours looks for three. Additionally, I specify the connector. I also use an "Unordered Group" to get Subject-Verb and Verb-Subject component orders. Lastly, I specify a Word object on the head term of the predicator clause component so I can specify that the verb is singular. Also, on your query I'd recommend inserting an "anything" object between the clause components; your search only finds where the Predicator directly follows the Subject; it would not locate a hit with, say, a Complement between the Subject and Predicator (with "Unordered Group", one doesn't need to worry about the 'Anything' or about component order).
Here's the query, which returns 162 results for the whole NT:
Thanks Rick
This is very helpful and much closer to what the original poster was looking for!
Rick,
thanks for looking at this...it was fascinating....those are the little details that I accidentally skip over...thanks for slowing me down this time....
