Lemma and Root searching...

Ok, I am a little confused here...

If I search for root:hebrew:אבל I get no results. If I search for lemma:hebrew:אבל I get a some results (88 in 85 articles) but ONLY within dictionaries, lexicons and vocabulary lists.

If I search for root:syriac:ܐܒܠ I get some results (20 in 14 articles) but only the lexicons and Peshitta not the Old Syrian Gospels. If I search for lemma:syriac:ܐܒܠ then I get no results.

Searches using Aramaic seem to follow the Hebrew in that results are returned when using lemma (7 in 7 articles) rather than root.

In V3 a lemma:אבל (couldn't separate Hebrew and Aramaic) search returns 1039 occurrences and includes Biblical texts, Canaanite Inscriptions, Qumran texts, Cairo Geniza texts, etc... pretty much what you would expect. root returned nothing for Hebrew/Aramaic. For Syriac it returned results for both searches but the lemma search had more hits in the lexicon and fewer hits in the Peshitta than the root search and some of the missing hits in the Peshitta were valid. V3 also missed the Old Syrian Gospels.

So, how do we know what resources are tagged and in what way? Do we use
lemma or root? Do we get biblical text or not? Do we get all resources
of that language that have word with a particular root or lemma not?

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Dave Hooton

how do we know what resources are tagged and in what way? Do we use
lemma or root? Do we get biblical text or not? Do we get all resources
of that language that have word with a particular root or lemma not?

Open a resource and look at its Information (circled i) page. Under Search Fields you will find the fields (footnote, surface, page) which allow special searching. If root is defined then it would be used in Basic Search according to the description provided (I haven't seen it with my resources, though). lemma is explicitly defined in L3 but not in L4. You can assume it for bibles with morphology but right click a word to see if lemma appears on the context menu.

For a bible, you use lemma: in Morph Search only (if you select a word with a definition you will find that lemma: is automatically prefixed, but I'm not confident this is a reliable indicator). For a non-bible with morphology I assume its name can be selected from the in list. If you then press Bible Search the format will change to something like <lemma = lbs/el/λόγος>, which can also be used in Basic Search.

NB. If a word selection in Morph Search results in hebrew:word or Greek:word a subsequent search will be on the surface or manuscript text only. If you want to try a lemma search then use lemma:word. I found results for your word in Westminster morphology using lemma:אֲבָל

HTH

James W Bennett

David, I am not sure if you understand what I am asking, and I certainly do not understand what you were explaining in the context of what I wanted to know [:)]

So let me back off a little and ask a more focused question. Lets say, for example, I want to search my entire library for all occurrences of words that use דבר as a root. I would expect that I would use a basic search and input lemma:דבר. I would expect results from the Qumran texts, the Cairo-Geniza texts, Hebrew and Canaanite Inscriptions, all the Biblical resources such as the BHS, and maybe a few others, this approach worked in V3. If in V4 I use a basic search then all I get are dictionaries, vocabularies, and lexicons. In V4 if I use the morphological search I just seem to get Biblical text. So... how do I search all resources that are morphologically tagged for all words that use דבר as a root?

Also, if any of the Logos people are listening, I have no scroll bar in morphological search results windows so I can not scroll through the long list of results. Combined with the fact that we can't collapse books, it makes searches that have more than about 15-20 results useless.

Dave Hooton

The answer to your more focussed Q is fairly simple, using Basic Search:-

bibles have to be searched in the format I indicated. The easiest way to get that is to start with lemma:word in Morph Search, then click on Basic Search
non-bibles can be searched with lemma:word for the most part. But you would have to check the resource information as I indicated if you wondered why a particular resource is not returning results. You can detect this easily if you compare the results from L3, and it would indicate a metadata issue in L4.

The problem for bibles is that you have to include all possible morphologies in the search and the term will look like:

lemma:word OR <lemma for morph 1> OR <lemma for morph 2> OR <lemma for morph 3>

So L4 has complicated a simple search in L3!

BTW I do have a scroll bar in Morph Search. Try widening the pane.

James W Bennett

Taking your suggestion I picked a Hebrew root, טבע, that has an Aramaic and Syriac cognate. Trying to search all of my resources for uses of that root in V3 was straight forward:

lemma:ܛܒܥ OR lemma:טבע

Searching in V4 became MUCH more complex:

טבע OR ܛܒܥ OR root:ܛܒܥ OR lemma:syriac:ܛܒܥ OR lemma:hebrew:טבע OR lemma:aramaic:טבע OR <lemma = s3/syr/ܛܒܥ> OR <lemma = lls/he/טבע> OR <lemma = wivu/he/טבע> OR <lemma = af/he/טבע>

If I left off any of the search terms then at least one of the references that was found in V3 was not found in V4. And if I had a few other resources I would have had to add another two Hebrew terms and six Aramaic terms for other morphologies.

Now, as a praise of V4, there were a few more references found in V4 that were not found in V3 and at first glance they appear to be valid.

Now, as a criticism of V4..

First, I have not been able to find any information on the Info page of a resource that indicates what morphology it uses. In that case I must search for all twelve morphologies (one Syriac, six Aramaic, and five Hebrew). And if they ever add morphological tagging for Ugaritic or other languages that may have cognates... or other resources with a different kind of morphology...

Second, NOTHING I tried, even going to the resource and right clicking on a word and performing a morphological search, produced hits in the Targums and Cairo Geniza documents with the single exception of the use of טבע without any kind of field information. And that only found references in two resources rather than fifteen (understandable because the root form of the word would have to be in the document).

Third, while I can understand the lemma:language search term requirements and morphological search term requirements (but don't like them), I do not understand why I would have to add טבע OR ܛܒܥ OR root:ܛܒܥ to find some of the references.

I really hope that Bob or Bradley are reading this thread. This has made what was a simple procedure in V3, and arguably the core functionality of the Logos software, COMPLETELY unusable in V4. As soon as the Leiden Peshitta and Samaritan Pentateuch arrive [:D] we may have to add three more morphologies (a Syriac one for the Peshitta and both Hebrew and Aramaic for the Pentateuch) in our searches.

I have used Logos software for nine years now. I have actually been on the Beta bandwagon the entire time and have never had real complaints with there software even with the Beta versions. I was one of the first to download and use a new Beta. That is until V4. I have been a bit busy and did not Beta test this version. The ONLY thing I can say at this point is that I am glad I just upgraded the engine to see how V4 handled and did not pay to upgrade my bundle yet. I know Bob has said that there are improvements happening over the next few months, some of which I feel are critical, but because of these issues in searching I have no choice but to remain a V3 user. And if the issues in searching are not fixed in the future then I will have to remain a V3 user until Logos no longer produces the resources I need in a form that will work with V3. At which time I will have to find some other alternative.

Wow, two complaining posts in the last two days, one about V4 and one about the forums. I really hate doing that and sounding so negative, and in the past have not where Logos is concerned, but issues with the forums and issues with V4 are really piling up with regard to the way that I use the product. So I apologize for the rant and hope that Logos takes to heart what is really meant to be a constructive request.