Clause search for a person versus Bible search for a person

Harry Hahne
Harry Hahne Member Posts: 947 ✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

What is the difference between a Bible search with <Person Moses> and a Clause search with person:Moses?

The Clause search on the SBL Greek New Testament for person:Moses search has 153 results, but the Bible search for <Person Moses> has 180 results.

Why does the Clause search for person:Moses miss Matthew 22:10, when it finds Mark 7:10? Both verses have "Moses said" (Μωϋσῆς εἶπεν) in the SBLGNT.

Why does the Clause search not find genitive uses of Moses (Matt 23:2: Moses' seat; Luke 2:22: Law of Moses; John 5:47: his writings), but it finds dative uses (Mark 12:26: God spoke to him, Matt 17:4 "one for Moses"). A good example is Mark 12:26, which highlights the clause which has "God spoke to him", but does not highlight the clause "have you not read in the book of Moses?"

Also, which tags in a verse are Context tags? I am looking at the Context menu and the Information tool, but I cannot figure out which correspond to the Clause search fields in the Help.

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Comments

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,865

    Dave can give you a much more thorough answer but:

    1. The unit searched is a clause rather than a verse
    2. The clause search feature will only return results for entities that are tagged as arguments of the verb and the verbs themselves. So, the entity needs to fit into a grammatical category (Subject, Object, etc.) or a functional role category (Agent, Patient, etc.

    3. <person> returns everything tagged by FL - that is direct name, alternate names, pronouns, verbs with person in the inflection ...
    4. When using mouse over on the clause visualization resources, the popup shows the syntactic role which is where I assumed the syntactic roles came from.
    5. I thought I'd seen the semantic roles in the context menu or information panel but somehow I'm not finding it now.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • Harry Hahne
    Harry Hahne Member Posts: 947 ✭✭✭

    MJ. Smith said:

    The clause search feature will only return results for entities that are tagged as arguments of the verb and the verbs themselves. So, the entity needs to fit into a grammatical category (Subject, Object, etc.) or a functional role category (Agent, Patient, etc.

    This is why I was confused that "Moses said..." was sometimes tagged and at other times not.

    Sometimes Moses will be tagged as the object of a preposition, but not always. It is tagged as a dative, but not a genitive. I'm still trying to make sense of what this data is.

    MJ. Smith said:

    I thought I'd seen the semantic roles in the context menu or information panel but somehow I'm not finding it now.

    I also thought that that I had seen them in the Information panel in the past. There are some semantic tags,but I don't see the clause type tags. If the tagging is on the text, it needs to be displayed in the Context menu so it can be searched on or at the least in the Information panel.

  • Jimmy Parks
    Jimmy Parks Member, Logos Employee Posts: 114

    The tagging is based on the grammar of the Greek, not the English translation. For example, in your earlier example Mk 7:10 vs Matt 15:4 there are different speakers listed.

    Mt 15:4 ὁ γὰρ θεὸς εἶπεν· Τίμα τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὴν μητέρα, καί· Ὁ κακολογῶν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα θανάτῳ τελευτάτω· 

    Mk 7:10 Μωϋσῆς γὰρ εἶπεν· Τίμα τὸν πατέρα σου καὶ τὴν μητέρα σου, καί· Ὁ κακολογῶν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα θανάτῳ τελευτάτω

    God is the Speaker in Matthew and Moses is the speaker in Mark. 
    Do you have any other examples where you have found incorrect tagging? I'd be glad to look at them.

     

  • Harry Hahne
    Harry Hahne Member Posts: 947 ✭✭✭

    The tagging is based on the grammar of the Greek, not the English translation. For example, in your earlier example Mk 7:10 vs Matt 15:4 there are different speakers listed.

    Mt 15:4 ὁ γὰρ θεὸς εἶπεν· Τίμα τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὴν μητέρα, καί· Ὁ κακολογῶν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα θανάτῳ τελευτάτω· 

    Mk 7:10 Μωϋσῆς γὰρ εἶπεν· Τίμα τὸν πατέρα σου καὶ τὴν μητέρα σου, καί· Ὁ κακολογῶν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα θανάτῳ τελευτάτω

    God is the Speaker in Matthew and Moses is the speaker in Mark.

     

    Matt 15:4 was not one of my examples. But I am sorry that I did not put in the right verse reference.

    In Matt 22:24 there is an embedded clause, where Moses is speaking. the Saducces ask a question and in their question they say "Moses said" (Μωϋσῆς εἶπεν). So this is a legitimate example that should be found by a clause search on Moses. Mark 7:10 is the type of construction as Matt 22:24, except Jesus is speaking and there is an embedded "Moses said" (Μωϋσῆς γὰρ εἶπεν). The only difference is the postpositive conjunction, which should not matter in a clause search.

    The vast majority of missing examples are where the Clause search does not find genitive uses of Moses (Matt 23:2: Moses' seat; Luke 2:22: "Law of Moses"; John 5:47: "his writings"). There are many more examples like these. Strangely it finds dative uses of Moses (Mark 12:26: "God spoke to him", εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Matt 17:4 "one for Moses", Μωϋσεῖ μίαν).

    A example is Mark 12:26, which highlights the clause which has "God spoke to him", but does not highlight the clause "have you not read in the book of Moses?" So the clause search is not limited to only instances of Moses as the subject.

    Clause searches seem inconsistent where Moses is the object of a preposition. It did not find Acts 15:21 ("forsake Moses", ἀποστασίαν ... ἀπὸ Μωϋσέως); Rom 5:14 (μέχρι Μωϋσέως). Yet the clause search did find Mark 9:4 ("with Moses", σὺν Μωϋσεῖ); Luke 24:27 ("beginning with Moses..." ἀρξάμενος ἀπὸ Μωϋσέως...); John 1:17 ("the Law was given through Moses", ὁ νόμος διὰ Μωϋσέως ἐδόθη); and many more.

    I am trying to make sense of what the clause search is actually doing and why it finds some references to Moses, but not others. I am not convinced of its consistency at this point.

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 53,865

    You might want to read Wikipedia on Arguments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_(linguistics) as it has some decent heuristics for adjuncts vs. arguments which answers some of your cases.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • Jimmy Parks
    Jimmy Parks Member, Logos Employee Posts: 114

    Yes. MJ is right.

    Clause Search is limited in the results that it will return. Only Arguments of the main verb will be returned as results in a Clause Search query. So, your examples with Moses in the dative case are instances where the main verb takes a third argument in the dative case (typically this will be an indirect object). The examples with Moses in the genitive are noun phrases where the genitive qualifies the head noun. Genitive modification is not an argument role. The embedded speech act is itself a complex argument, but it is not analyzed within the constraints of Clause Search.  

  • Harry Hahne
    Harry Hahne Member Posts: 947 ✭✭✭

    The embedded speech act is itself a complex argument, but it is not analyzed within the constraints of Clause Search.

    The only difference I can see between Matt 22;24 and Mark 7:10 is who is speaking. In Matt 22:24 the Saducces are speaking and in Mark 7:10 Jesus is speaking. But both quotations say "Moses said...".

    Why should the Clause search find Mark 7:10, but not Matt 22:24? If embedded clauses are not analyzed, Mark 7:10 should not be found in the Clause search. I would expect a clause search to find embedded clauses, no matter how many layers deep an embedded clause is.

  • Jimmy Parks
    Jimmy Parks Member, Logos Employee Posts: 114

    That is a good question. I'll look into this further.