L/V 10+ Tip of the Day #335 How to get from the words of the text to the literal meaning per ChatGPT

Another tip of the day (TOTD) series for Logos/Verbum 10. They will be short and often drawn from forum posts. Feel free to ask questions and/or suggest forum posts you'd like to see included. Adding comments about the behavior on mobile and web apps would be appreciated by your fellow forumites. A search for "L/V 10+ Tip of the Day site:community.logos.com" on Google should bring the tips up as should this Reading List within the application.

This tip is inspired by the forum post: none

This is a personal pet peeve of mine - people forgetting how much happens in going from the words on the page (or the text we hear) before we understand it's literal meaning. I tend use the term "hyper-literal" to refer to the text before we've converted it into meaning. I talked ChatGPT to provide this list as a mixture of the views of several influential linguists.

[quote]

Steps for Text Interpretation:

Syntactic Parsing: Break down the sentence structure to identify the grammatical roles of individual words.
Lexical Disambiguation: Choose the correct meaning of a word when multiple meanings are possible.
Resolve Deixis: Determine the referents of deictic expressions such as "this," "that," "here," and "there."
Identify Figurative Language: Recognize metaphors, idioms, and other non-literal expressions and interpret them based on the context.
Semantic Role Labeling: Identify what roles individual entities play in the actions or states described.
Coreference Resolution: Identify when different words or phrases refer to the same entity in the discourse.
Infer Implicatures: Deduce what is implied but not explicitly stated, often relying on general world knowledge and the Gricean maxims.
Integrate World Knowledge: Apply general or domain-specific knowledge to better understand the text.
Identify Discourse Relations: Understand the relationships between sentences or clauses to build a coherent understanding of the text.
Evaluate Consistency and Validity: Ensure that the derived meanings do not contradict each other or the general context.
Assign Pragmatic Meaning: Consider social and cultural nuances that may affect interpretation.

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Comments

DMB

No, I don't. I tried a hyper-literal reading several times. The part you seem to leave out, is how the human brain operates, where steps 1-10 were skipped in favor of group-supplied or community meaning ... most often religious. Which is why, if you query backwards from step 11, 1-10 often can't be explained. Example: a 'son' of God.

Beloved Amodeo

I appreciate your effort to apply method here and am largely satisfied with your conclusions. To your list I would suggest adding evaluating the range of meanings the word or words have in Biblical and extra-biblical sources and allow for the Holy Spirit to aid in interpreting the meaning of the text after prayerful reflection.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1274730#Comment_1274730

The part you seem to leave out, is how the human brain operates, where steps 1-10 were skipped

I don't disagree but would say the steps are so automatic that we don't notice them rather than skipped them. I agree that it is common for people to always read to a foregone conclusion. In studying the issue of sola scriptura, I was amused at the amount of ink spilt on proof-texts where there was no disagreement on the meaning of the text - the unmentioned presupposition with which the verse was read was the basis of the disagreement in application/implication. But after a totally unexpected miscommunication recently on the forums, I became obsessed with the literal meaning of the text and amazed at how much of the Logos coding is addressing steps we do unconsciously and how sparse the coding is on the steps we stumble on e.g. the textual structures, imagery . . .

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1274733#Comment_1274733

To your list I would suggest adding evaluating the range of meanings the word or words have in Biblical and extra-biblical sources and allow for the Holy Spirit to aid in interpreting the meaning of the text after prayerful reflection.

A good point to remember ... I hadn't pointed ChatGPT to any particular texts but rather to reasonably contemporary linguists.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1274796#Comment_1274796

...I became obsessed with the literal meaning of the text and amazed at how much of the Logos coding is addressing steps we do unconsciously and how sparse the coding is on the steps we stumble on e.g. the textual structures, imagery . . .

Just chatting, but your obsession may be seriously heretical. I'm joking, but serious. Sitting in churches, thru the years, raising your hand for a straight-forward reading is not good. Or asking a 'we believe' person exactly what do they mean, isn't a welcomed conversation.

But I understand your intent ... Logos skips to the chase.

Yesterday I was surprised to read demonstrative examples where Christ was just Jesus' secular name (the messiah part long departed). Context long departed.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1274813#Comment_1274813

but your obsession may be seriously heretical.

One of the major distinctions between Orthodox and Catholics is the Catholic's obsession with dissecting and categorizing ... which is why we have Aquinas and they have Palamas. So, yes, I'm "heretical" [8-|]

Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)

Steps for Text Interpretation seeks insight for What was said while missing How verbal action happened/happening/will happen.

Original language verbal action expression is more expressive than English. Primary focus of English verbs is time: past, present, future. Primary focus of Hebrew, Aramaic, & Greek verbs is kind of action. The indicative mood of Greek verbs has a secondary time aspect.

Hebrew Qal & Greek Aorist provide little insight about action happened/happening/will happen. Imperatives declare commands: e.g. sh'-MA in Deuteronomy 6:4 is a command to hear & obey (with contextual words in Deuteronomy showing when to obey = all days of life in human family, including descendants). Perfect declares complete action with ongoing results. Hebrew perfect can describe future action whose completion will have ongoing results. Greek imperfect describes continous action with indicative mood expressing past time for action: e.g. John 1:1 verbs.

Keep Smiling [:)]

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1274834#Comment_1274834

while missing How verbal action happened/happening/will happen.

I absolutely share your concern although I would automatically shoehorn the verbal action information into the semantic role/case step ... but as I expand the steps I will certainly make sure it is explicitly addressed.