Extra characters in BHS (SESB) morphological search

Tony Pyles
Tony Pyles Member Posts: 8 ✭✭
in English Forum

Forgive me if this is already sorted; I am not active on these forums and don't know how to search them well.

In attempting to construct a morphological search (for certain forms of a specific lemma) in BHS a number of extra characters appear. They do not appear when I try this in the Lexham Hebrew Bible, and if I delete them from the line in the BHS search everything seems to work out fine. Is there some setting I need to change? Is this a bug?

I'm trying to search for all of the Qal forms of ירא in the Pentateuch (I'm figuring out how to do this for a Word Study assignment so that I can help my students do so). Here is what things look like searching BHS (the SESB resource):

image.png

But if I search in LHB I don't get all of the ?s or the +S at the end:

image.png

Of course I am also curious about the different number of results; without combing through I suspect is has to do with a couple of K/Q.

Thanks in advance!

Tony

Best Answers

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 54,489
    Answer ✓

    Nice mix of apples and oranges. If you look at your search argument:

    • lemma.h indicates that the morphology being used is the Logos Hebrew morphology
    • lemma.sesb indicates that the sesb morphology is being used.

    Different systems of morphology with differ attributes to select by - no reason to expect them to be the same. The coding structure can be seen by entering @ in a morph search for each resource. They are also documented in the wiki

    The ? is simply a place holder in the morphology to say any value is fine. It is not necessary to use a place marker to the right of the last value you care about.

    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."

  • Tony Pyles
    Tony Pyles Member Posts: 8 ✭✭
    Answer ✓

    Thanks very much! Working through the morphology codes it looks like the "+S" at the end typically designates a pronominal suffix, with codes to follow the S noting number, gender, etc. Interesting that it should find forms without suffixes with the S present in the search string.

Comments

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 54,489
    Answer ✓

    Nice mix of apples and oranges. If you look at your search argument:

    • lemma.h indicates that the morphology being used is the Logos Hebrew morphology
    • lemma.sesb indicates that the sesb morphology is being used.

    Different systems of morphology with differ attributes to select by - no reason to expect them to be the same. The coding structure can be seen by entering @ in a morph search for each resource. They are also documented in the wiki

    The ? is simply a place holder in the morphology to say any value is fine. It is not necessary to use a place marker to the right of the last value you care about.

    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."

  • Tony Pyles
    Tony Pyles Member Posts: 8 ✭✭
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1356999#Comment_1356999

    Thanks for your reply; I anticipated from the lemma.h vs. lemma.sesb.h what you describe (different morphological databases)—I'm glad to have my suspicion confirmed.

    I also suspected that the "?" was a placeholder functioning in the manner that you describe; clearly it behaved as such when I ran my search. Again, glad to have that confirmed.

    There are two things that remain unresolved for me:

    1. Why does initiating a search in one text generate the placeholders, but the other does not?
    2. What is indicated by the "+S" at the end of the search string for SESB?

    And where would I find the wiki you mention? I would be happy to read through documentation related to the modules, tagging, etc.

    None of this interfered with my ability to do what I wanted, but I am trying to anticipate any challenges, difficulties, or confusing elements my students may encounter. I am a long-time user of another program for original language work, but have attempted very little original language work in Logos—but Logos is what most of my students are working with.

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 54,489
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1357005#Comment_1357005

    Why does initiating a search in one text generate the placeholders, but the other does not?

    That is a matter of not needing them to the right of the last parameter you provided. All morphology add ? where needed

    And where would I find the wiki you mention?

    err16.png

    https://community.logos.com/kb/articles/2141-morphology-codes?utm_source=community-search&utm_medium=organic-search&utm_term=morphology+codes the links have not all been updated to account for the change in platform

    What is indicated by the "+S" at the end of the search string for SESB?

    I don't recall off the top of my head - I only remember that it is a Hebrew verb attribute and I don't know Hebrew

    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."

  • Tony Pyles
    Tony Pyles Member Posts: 8 ✭✭
    Answer ✓

    Thanks very much! Working through the morphology codes it looks like the "+S" at the end typically designates a pronominal suffix, with codes to follow the S noting number, gender, etc. Interesting that it should find forms without suffixes with the S present in the search string.

Categories