Why adjacent words need a separation of 2 words instead of 1 that would be understood from Text searches
Why this alternate query needs 3 words for separation?
The decision to use "within 2 words" as adjacent came out of this discussion: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/128603.aspx specifically https://community.logos.com/forums/p/128603/835862.aspx#835862
Scott
I was looking for an explanation that can be viewed by all users! The reference only provides a background.
Sorry about the broken links!
The way I like to think about it is that the number "within N words" means that you have a window of N words that all of the columns have to fit into. If you have 3 columns a morph grid document, then the window has to be at least 3 words wide to fit 3 distinct words. Likewise if you have 5 columns, you will need a window of at least "within 5 words". In contrast there's no way that 5 distinct words can fit in a window of 4 words. (Note that in a morph grid document each column represents a distinct word.)
This also makes sense if you select "within 1 verse". That means all of the columns will fit in one verse.
I think that's an intuitive way to interpret the number N in "within N words".
Just be aware that adjacent words need to be "within 2 words" because there are two distinct words and so the window needs to be 2 words wide.
While I understand your explanation, I believe the terminology is confusing. Naturally I think x within (a distance of ) y words, not x within (a distance that includes the original of) y words. X within 1 word of Y naturally means to me that Y must be the word before or after X. X within 1 word of Y means Y must not be any different from X is neither natural nor intuitive.
Would there be any harm to the Morph Grid to use the more traditional (and I think more natural) way of expressing distance?
Keep in mind that the software already has the proximity operator "WITHIN N WORDS", and it doesn't mean what you describe.
So, no matter how intuitive the explanation is by itself, in the context of the rest of the software, it is not intuitive. It would be helpful if terms that are used in the search pane could have similar meanings in the Morph Search Grid.
Part of the answer is to have the documentation explicitly use "inclusive" or "exclusive" which is the common way of distinguishing between the two terminologies.
I propose that you change the terminology to use SPANNING or SPANS as its dictionary definition agrees with the concept. That way it makes sense of two columns that SPANS 1 WORDS as the equivalent of ANDEQUALS e.g. κυρίου [Surface] SPANS 1 WORDS κύριος [Lemma] - a query that currently doesn't work. If one column has "Does not exist" then we have an NOTEQUALS query!
