Morph Search Help Needed - David? - Rob? - Anybody?

I am trying to search all occurences of the use of nouns without the definite article as the predicate noun in a "sentence" with a noun with the definite article and the verb ειμι as in John 1:1 θεος ην ο λογος or 1 John 4:16 ο θεοσ αγαπη εστιν

The nouns are always in the nominative

ειμι is always finite

order varies greatly

one noun has an article, one does not

I've tried many things but can't isolate. Many of my attempts don't get John 1:1 or get the article and the noun. I think I have to search just for the noun without the article and ειμι otherwise there is no distinction. Then I can sort through them and see if there is also an articular noun.

To start with I've tried to just find nominative nouns without an article. Start small and then add. I can't get that to work.

With NA27 with Gramcord morphology in John (I've also tried NA27 with Logos morphology) I've tried:

@N??N ANDNOT @A??N but that only gets anarthrous nouns where there is no nominative article in the verse (157 results)
@N??N ANDNOT AFTER 1 word @A??N - that gets John 1:1 but gets all the nominative nouns and articles (1704 results in just John) - gets what I want but everything else as well - = @N??N AND @N??N - so can I combine ANDNOT and AFTER/BEFORE/NEAR?
@N??N ANDNOT (@A??N BEFORE 1 word @N??N) - that doesn't get Jn 1:1 - similar to #1 (244 results) but gets some verses where there is an article in the verse but occurs more than 1 word away from the noun but not Jn 1:1 - because there are occurances of noun & article beside each other in that verse??? How then do you isolate words within a verse from the rest of the verse?
@N??N ANDNOT (@N??N AFTER 1 word @A??N) - as expected, same as #3

At this point I'm stumped.

Any help?

Thanks,

Chris

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Comments

Dave Hooton

Give me a few hours, but it sounds little different than your other request!

Chris Elford

Give me a few hours, but it sounds little different than your other request!

I'll gladly give you time.

It isn't really different, but I've continued to try and refined what I have done. I at least got to understand brackets, I think. I also clarified my memory that this isn't Granville Sharp's rule--that's the use of και and the omission of one article.

I was worried that the other question was lost in the forum as it was attached to someone else's query and I hadn't seen a response.

I wasn't trying to bug you. You guys are way ahead of me and are very helpful.

I'll wait -- albeit with bated breath.

Thanks, Dave.

Dave Hooton

First I'll refer you to my earlier solution http://community.logos.com/forums/p/4575/37916.aspx#37916

It's obvious that the final query excludes at least two valid results:

1 Jn 4.16 because there are two @NN together, foiling the proximity checks

Jn 1.1 because there is an earlier construction matching the ANDNOT condition

and I could not formulate a satisfactory text query to work around these cases. So we are left with the basic query (@NN BEFORE 3 words
lemma:εἰμί) producing 1216 hits/532 verses which is loaded with articular(?) cases!

So we go to Syntax Search (below) and a quick examination shows we have the two verses above but some results from the text query are excluded because of the "gap" phenomenon which plagues all Syntax implementations! The determiner is excluded because that caters for the definite article.

I leave you to experiment further!

Chris Elford

Dave,

Thanks for looking at this twice. I missed your earlier answer, I'm sorry. I hadn't set it to email me and I didn't twig to the title after all the others I've looked at.

I can see that my basic understanding of the morph search is coming along. I'm still wrestling with specifics of the spacing, etc. Your explanation above is clear.

I'm not used to the terms and concepts in the Syntax search, although your example on my question helps me greatly. I'll have to "go to school" on the terms and concepts by reading through the glossaries and handbooks from Lexham, Andersen Forbes, etc. I took my languages 25 years ago and we didn't use the linguistic approach. I've been able to keep my languages up, fairly well, but haven't kept up with the new approaches.

I'm not sure if the changes are conceptual or more terminological. I'll probably be back asking questions again and again.

I wanted to add the presence of ειμι next. That will eliminate some of the extraneous hits, but won't get the ones that are already not included.

I may have to do it the old fashioned way: looking through them manually. But at least the computer can eliminate some.

Thanks again.

Chris

Alan R. Craig

Dear Chris,

Perhaps you might want to also include in your search those clauses which have the anarthrous predicate nominative preceding the verb and subject noun (stated or implied), for this is the actual full syntax (word order) of the third clause of John 1:1.

I'd like to know of your findings: john1one@earthlink.net

Agape, Alan.

Robert Pavich

Alan,

I'd like to make sure that I understand what you messaged to myself and Chris about John 1:1;

"If a person can find ANY anarthrous nominative singular nouns that have been translated "a this" or "a that" in English, then JW's are correct in their NWT translation of "a god" in John 1:1"

Have I summarized your position correctly?

Alan R. Craig

No.

Please read my message again.

Agape, Alan.

Chris Elford

Dear Chris,

Perhaps you might want to also include in your search those clauses which have the anarthrous predicate nominative preceding the verb and subject noun (stated or implied), for this is the actual full syntax (word order) of the third clause of John 1:1.

I'd like to know of your findings: john1one@earthlink.net

Agape, Alan.

Alan,

I realize that is the full syntax of Jn 1:1. As I stated in my earlier post, I was starting out to leave out the presence of the verb as I had tried earlier with it and found I couldn't figure it out. So, I was trying what I thought would be an easier search. I'm still stumped as to how to do it, although I've got lots of ideas to work through in my earlier thread that Dave responded to and what he and Rob have said here. I just haven't time to do so.

Really my main goal is not to be able to refute JWs, but it is to become proficient at using the search tools in L4. I'm using this as a test case - it is probably too complicated for my level of understanding (I may try to find all the instances of God in the NIV -- that's probably my level of expertise at the moment.) I whined in the beta testing about my reason for upgrading in L3 was to be able to do some serious language study through searching, but I had not been able to master the Graphical search tool. I'm more determined to become proficient (note I have lowered my expectations of my ability) at searching in L4 as I find the tools more understandable. I'm hoping they are able to do the kind of things I want. I suspect this will invovle Syntax searches. I've got a steep learning curve to get to understand them. Hopefully, I will.

The issue of equative verbs and anarthrous nouns is something I've always been interested in, not for the sake of JW confrontations. Mormons are much more prevalent in my community and will be building a temple just half a mile from my house. I haven't met a JW in the five years I've lived here. I'm more interested in being able to dig into scripture to gain an understanding.

I'm not sure where you are coming from. Your initial page on your website doesn't help me know what position on all this you are coming from. I haven't time to investigate further. Your response to Dave is even vaguer.

If I am able to get the L4 to do the kind of search I'm trying to do, I'll post the steps I take, because I think it will help others to use this tool more effectively, not to deal with Arians in the 21st century.

Chris

Robert Pavich

Chris,

I agree with you....this is a real world test case and probably too much for me also...but I"m willing to toss it around with the real pros..

Dave Hooton

but I"m willing to toss it around

OK, here's 3 related challenges

1. How many times is God not translated by theos in the NT of the ESV?

State what the result means. Hint use NOTEQUALS.

2. How many times is god preceded by the definite article in the NT of the ESV?

Quote the silly count in the search and give the common-sense count as well.

3. How many times is God/theos preceded by the definite article in the NT of the ESV?

State the query you used in each case.

Alan R. Craig

Hi Chris,

When it comes to Mormons, because Jesus said, "By this all men [people] will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35), after quoting this scripture to them I then ask, "What can you tell me about what your 'brothers' did in Nazi Germany?' "What stand did they take?" "How did they show love for one another?"

Chris, on the chance that you don't know, you just might want to do a bit of research on this yourself. Let's put it this way, the record isn't pretty.

Curiously, I have yet to meet any Mormons who, before reading the "Book of Mormon," had ever read the Bible all the way thru.

Agape, Alan.