SMALL but HUGE Morphology Chart Improvement

Andrew Zoll
Andrew Zoll Member Posts: 182
edited December 16 in English Forum
love the morphology charts in logos 6. They are an amazingly helpful resource. One addition (and if it’s already possible, I apologize for my ignorance) would make them an invaluable and essential asset for bible study and original language work: if you could show ALL the forms for the words in addition to the number of times they’re used, even if it’s 0. Really, all you'd have to do is fill in the blanks that already exist (see attached image)!

Ideally, this would have a toggle so you could move back and forth between that and the current tool’s view, it would be amazing. It would be a helpful refresher for those studying the original languages, but struggle to keep the forms in their memory and also those who study other Greek works like the Septuagint to make those connections that we might otherwise miss. 


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Comments

  • Greg F
    Greg F Member Posts: 278

    Yes, I absolutely agree, this would be extremely useful.

    In fact, I remember I was excited to see that there were  "morphology charts" in Logos 6, thinking (mistakenly) that I would be able to access full conjugation and declination tables.. As things stand now, I never use the Morophology tool.

  • Francis
    Francis Member Posts: 3,816 ✭✭✭

    Ideally, this would have a toggle so you could move back and forth between that and the current tool’s view

    [Y]

  • Eli Evans (Logos)
    Eli Evans (Logos) Member, Logos Employee Posts: 1,404

    Thanks, Andrew! I think you really have two suggestions here:

    those who study other Greek works like the Septuagint to make those connections that we might otherwise miss.

    Adding the Septuagint (LXX) is a great idea that is on our "someday" list. We definitely should fill in forms from other literature, first the LXX, then other literature from roughly the same period like Apostolic Fathers, Josephus, Philo. This would be valuable, for sure.

    Andrew Zoll said:Really, all you'd have to do is fill in the blanks that already exist (see attached image)!

    Comprehensive fill-in is suggested periodically, but is impractical for a number of reasons:

    • Not counting function words and indeclinable words like proper nouns and loan words, there are around 10,000 Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic lemmas represented in the Morph Charts. So maybe as many as a million blanks.
    • Lots of forms of a given word never occur in any known literature because the forms fulfill relatively obscure grammatical functions. For example, there is only one future passive subjunctive first person plural verb in my whole library of every Greek morph text we've every published -- and it's not a lemma that occurs in the LXX or NT anyway.
    • Other forms are extremely unlikely to ever occur because they would be semantically nonsensical (eg, "he will have given birth to himself").
    • We could try writing a program to take a lemma and automatically generate missing forms, but some words form irregularly, and many more semi-regularly, so you'd spend a lot of time on the rule set.

    That said, I know of some print resources that show completely filled-in paradigms for exemplar words, which we could do as well, someday. But nobody has attempted every word in the Bible or even the NT as far as I know. The closest thing I've ever seen is Mounce's Morphology of Biblical Greek, also available in Logos.

    Thanks again for the suggestions. Keep 'em coming.

  • Lee
    Lee Member Posts: 2,714

    Eli has explained it in the best way possible!

    IIRC, Mounce's MBG has a few isolated errors (can't recall exactly, maybe in the subjunctive liquids). In my experience, it doesn't help a lot to have a table with every form of each attested Koine Greek verb.

  • Andrew Zoll
    Andrew Zoll Member Posts: 182
    That being said, it would be at least helpful if ONE word from each type of word was filled in completely as an example and a refresher for those of us who have a hard time keeping μι, ς, σι, με(ν), τε, οσι(ν) or ω, εις, η, ομεν, ετε, ουσι(ν) in our heads.
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  • NB.Mick
    NB.Mick MVP Posts: 15,968

    Eli Evans said:

    I agree. 

    Maybe this could come as a "Greek paradigm interactive" (with the usual words and tables - and of course flip between suffix-only display and word display, and e.g. the ability to switch between Mounce-style and Other-Teacher's-style with regards to displaying the vocals or not as part of the suffixes etc)

    Have joy in the Lord! Smile

  • Veli Voipio
    Veli Voipio MVP Posts: 2,026

    Just slightly off-topic, but now I found this "show empty" button and it seems useful to me, I can see the morphology in standard positions. [8-|]

    I don't know in which version that button came there. I probably bypassed it as it did not make any sense and did not even test it. [:$]

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  • Drew Reynolds
    Drew Reynolds Member Posts: 1

    Hi Eli!

    As a new owner of Logos 7, I was trying to find if something existed exactly how Andrew had described.  It would be extremely helpful for me and I'm sure many other language students if as many blanks as possible could be filled in.  I am using Mounce's Morphology of Biblical Greek, but it would be 1,000 times better if it were in the morphology charts in Logos already.  Just adding my vote and hope that you guys will expand on this in some way.  Thanks!!! :)

    - Drew

  • ... I know of some print resources that show completely filled-in paradigms for exemplar words, which we could do as well, someday.

    Perhaps the free paradigm pdf files in => Greek and Hebrew Paradigm Charts (10 pack) could become Logos resources, possibly expanded to include exemplar words.

    those who study other Greek works like the Septuagint to make those connections that we might otherwise miss.

    Adding the Septuagint (LXX) is a great idea that is on our "someday" list. We definitely should fill in forms from other literature, first the LXX, then other literature from roughly the same period like Apostolic Fathers, Josephus, Philo. This would be valuable, for sure.

    +1 [Y] for LXX and other additions. Noted LXX has more forms of σῴζω

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  • Kiyah
    Kiyah Member Posts: 2,823 ✭✭✭✭

    I like to raise this issue again, it would be great if the LXX was included in the Morphology Charts.  I use them all the time and would love to be able to use them for the LXX as well.

  • Mike  Aubrey
    Mike Aubrey Member Posts: 11

    We're now ten years on since the Morphology Charts tool was released in Logos 6.

    Being able to run the tool against other morphological tagged texts, like the LXX, the AF Philo, Josephus, OT Pseudepigrapha, etc. remains one of the most useful things Logos could do for language study.

  • Fabian
    Fabian Member Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭

    We're now ten years on since the Morphology Charts tool was released in Logos 6.

    Being able to run the tool against other morphological tagged texts, like the LXX, the AF Philo, Josephus, OT Pseudepigrapha, etc. remains one of the most useful things Logos could do for language study.

    +1

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  • Doc B
    Doc B Member Posts: 3,579 ✭✭✭

    So maybe as many as a million blanks.

    If you got a million users to type a single zero, it'd be done. But then, that would all be for naught. 

    [:D] [:D] [:D] [:D] [:^)]

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