Morph Search Roadblocks: Seeking Experts for Complex Queries and Customizations

Dorren Rodriguez
Dorren Rodriguez Member Posts: 3
edited November 21 in English Forum

I have inquiries pertaining to the following aspects of Logos Bible Software:

1. Morph Searches
2. The Analysis View/Grid View/Spreadsheet View component of the overall Search Result Analysis for Morph Searches

Query 1: Is there a mechanism to execute a wildcard or empty placeholder search for word senses or datatypes? For instance, to search for sense:\* (any term that has been semantically tagged) or thing:\* (any entity classified as a "thing").

Query 2 (Specific to Biblical Entities/Things): Is there a way to conduct hierarchical entity/thing searches? For example, when searching thing:body, the results exclude specific body parts like heart or heel, despite their classification under the "body" category. Similarly, when typing thing:Earth, it suggests "Geographical objects and features" but does not allow searching for that specific category.

Query 3: Please provide advanced MORPH search parameters and operators for the following Logos resources:

- Biblical Artifact
- Biblical Thing
- Concept
- Counseling Theme
- Cultural Ontology
- Event
- List
- Location
- Measure
- Person
- Preaching Theme
- Word Senses Related to Theological Concepts
- Lists of Words and Concepts
- The Lexham Theological Wordbook
- The Lexham Cultural Ontology Glossary

Query 4: Is there an alternative method to view the sense directory/relationship paths besides the Bible Sense Lexicon page or individual Factbook pages? For example, to view the path:

to feel (emotion) › to dislike › to hate › to abhor

Query 5: Each sense has a ref.ly URL (e.g., https://ref.ly/logos4/Factbook;ref=ws.hate.v.01). Is there a way to search for and retrieve all of these URLs in bulk?

Query 6: In the Morph Search Results Grid/Spreadsheet Analysis View, one can choose columns to display and sort by. Are these column lists immutable, or can custom columns (e.g., other datatype labels) be added?

Query 7: When working with the Concordance, it appears to be limited to viewing and exporting a single data point and its associated count. Is there a way to modify this and export multiple data points simultaneously? For example, to export the lemma, sense, and Bible reference together.

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Comments

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,643

    Hi Dorren - and welcome to the forums

    Query 1: Is there a mechanism to execute a wildcard or empty placeholder search for word senses or datatypes? For instance, to search for sense:\* (any term that has been semantically tagged) or thing:\* (any entity classified as a "thing").

    No - this isn't possible

    Query 2 (Specific to Biblical Entities/Things): Is there a way to conduct hierarchical entity/thing searches?

    I'm afraid this isn't possible either

    Query 3: Please provide advanced MORPH search parameters and operators for the following Logos resources:

    What sort of parameters / operators were you looking for?

    And for feature enhancement requests, Logos has asked that we use https://feedback.logos.com/boards 

    Query 4: Is there an alternative method to view the sense directory/relationship paths besides the Bible Sense Lexicon page or individual Factbook pages? For example, to view the path:

    to feel (emotion) › to dislike › to hate › to abhor

    Not that I'm aware of - what were you hoping for with this?

    Query 5: Each sense has a ref.ly URL (e.g., https://ref.ly/logos4/Factbook;ref=ws.hate.v.01). Is there a way to search for and retrieve all of these URLs in bulk?

    Not that I am aware of

    Query 6: In the Morph Search Results Grid/Spreadsheet Analysis View, one can choose columns to display and sort by. Are these column lists immutable, or can custom columns (e.g., other datatype labels) be added?

    We are limited to what is provided by the software, we can't change them

    Query 7: When working with the Concordance, it appears to be limited to viewing and exporting a single data point and its associated count. Is there a way to modify this and export multiple data points simultaneously? For example, to export the lemma, sense, and Bible reference together.

    No this is not possible.

    I'm aware that these are probably not the answers you were hoping for.

    What were you hoping to achieve with the type of functionality you were asking about?

    Graham

  • Dorren Rodriguez
    Dorren Rodriguez Member Posts: 3

    Thanks so much for your reply!

    The project and goal behind these specific tasks is to calculate and tally the concept/topics/themes in the Old Testament and New Testament, so as to be able to give a general high summary. For example, someone reading the New Testament is X amount of times more likely to read Y versus Z.

    Louw Nida gives a good start but I find some of their classifications arbitrary. The Bible Sense Lexicon also is a great resource for this, but it falls short because it’s not easy to export and map out all of the semantic hierarchies and paths.

    At the end of the day, it looks like I’m going to start with root words, and see/treat each root as a “cluster”/“category“ of various senses and LN domains. Then, based on those root results, I‘ll reuse those senses and LN domains to search all other roots that fall under those same senses/domains.

    Thankfully, the Bible THINGS and PEOPLE/Roles and places categorizations seem pretty straightforward and intuitive. I just wish there was an easy way to remove the words that have been tagged under them leaving only words that have not. The Bible sense lexicon avoids proper nouns, but many Bible things tagged as things still have a sense tag, which makes tallying things up difficult.

    As far as I’m aware, I can’t seem to find any resource breaking down the PERCENTAGES of the overall high level semantic domains of what the OT and NT are about. I’m extremely grateful for the resources that DO exist and the work put in to them. However, why no one has thought to add a statistical or percentage or numeric dimension to the semantic domain data is completely beyond me. 

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 35,779

    Query 3: Please provide advanced MORPH search parameters and operators for the following Logos resources:

    These are not exclusive Morph Search as you have a mix of morphological and datatype items

    - Biblical Artifact   --->  ??
    - Biblical Thing   ---> see Person, Place, and Things 
    - Concept   ----> Concept = Topic  e.g. type "birth" in a Search box and you will get a suggestion for a Topic. Or use the Topic Guide
    - Counseling Theme  --->  see Searchable Labels 
    - Cultural Ontology  ---> see its Dataset Documentation
    - Event  --->  see Biblical Events Dataset Documentation
    - List  -->   ??
    - Location   --->  see Person, Place, and Things. Location is also a parameter of Supernatural Being
    - Measure  --->  Tools > Weights and Measures Converter
    - Person   ----> see Person, Place, and Things.
    - Preaching Theme   --->  see Preaching Themes List
    - Word Senses Related to Theological Concepts   ---> 'Theology' not recognised in Bible Sense Lexicon. Get indirectly from passages in related Searches e.g. in Theology Guide, Topic Guide.
    - Lists of Words and Concepts  --->  Words??  In general no complete lists unless there is a related Dataset Documentation book with Glossary.
    - The Lexham Theological Wordbook  ---> Prioritize it with top 5 Lexicons and you can access it from right-click menu on a lemma
    - The Lexham Cultural Ontology Glossary  --> Lexham Cultural Ontology Glossary

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13