Clause Search - the results are rather baffling!

Richard Lyall
Richard Lyall Member Posts: 1,040 ✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

Clause searches return the following:

subject:Jesus verb:to weep returns John 11:35 - "Jesus wept"

subject:Jesus verb:to weep, to cry returns Luke 19:41-44 but not John 11:35

Example 2:

subject:Jesus verb:to rebuke, to reprove, to warn returns 0 results but

subject:Jesus verb:to rebuke, to reprove returns 13

subject:Jesus verb:to rebuke returns 0

I only installed L5 earlier this evening, but this is not at all intuitive!

Is there a more indepth guide to Clause Searches anywhere that might explain this? I thought the comma was operating as an OR operator, which should add results not remove them.

Thanks
Richard 

Comments

  • fgh
    fgh Member Posts: 8,948 ✭✭✭

    Clause searches return the following:

    subject:Jesus verb:to weep returns John 11:35 - "Jesus wept"

    subject:Jesus verb:to weep, to cry returns Luke 19:41-44 but not John 11:35

    From another thread:



    • even though the English labels for verbs overlap ("to say" vs "to say, to tell"), they're not searching the same thing: the underlying Greek verb is different. So you should expect to get different results. 


    Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,357

    subject:Jesus verb:to weep returns John 11:35 - "Jesus wept"

    subject:Jesus verb:to weep, to cry returns Luke 19:41-44 but not John 11:35

    Different lemmas, but I do agree that I would not have expected that differentiation.

    subject:Jesus verb:to rebuke, to reprove, to warn returns 0 results but

    subject:Jesus verb:to rebuke, to reprove returns 13

    subject:Jesus verb:to rebuke returns 0

    For the verb term alone (without subject:) I get results for the first two.

    I don't see verb:to rebuke as a valid value!  Notice the red border around the Find box if you try it.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Rick Brannan (Logos)
    Rick Brannan (Logos) Member, Logos Employee Posts: 1,862

    • even though the English labels for verbs overlap ("to say" vs "to say, to tell"), they're not searching the same thing: the underlying Greek verb is different. So you should expect to get different results.

    The values searched here are, as I understand it, the "lexical value" fields from the Lexham Greek NT Interlinear.

    Those values are context sensitive; when the editor determined more than one sense might apply, he listed them all. It is not a simple concordant gloss.

    It seems the expected behavior for clause search is more of a 1:1 correspondence between the lemma and the gloss. I believe (Sean can clarify as he sees fit) that we're discussing ways to do this internally.

    I think one thing to realize through all of this is that clause search is really cool, but nothing like it has really ever been done before. We're learning, just like you, how to fine-tune things. Feedback like this helps in that process, so it is greatly appreciated.

    Rick Brannan
    Data Wrangler, Faithlife
    My books in print

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,357

    The values searched here are, as I understand it, the "lexical value" fields from the Lexham Greek NT Interlinear.

    Certainly appear to be. The Literal values are:  Lk 19:41 he wept, Jn 11:35 wept

    It seems the expected behavior for clause search is more of a 1:1 correspondence between the lemma and the gloss.

    Not from observations in this thread. I did not expect the above two references to be differentiated. The Sense Lexicon doesn't help at all as weep produces "weeping person" whilst cry offers a number of alternatives; none of which have the lemmas in the above passages. But the fact that the lexical value offers "to weep" for both suggests they should not be differentiated.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 55,583

    fgh said:

    From another thread:

     

     

    • even though the English labels for verbs overlap ("to say" vs "to say, to tell"), they're not searching the same thing: the underlying Greek verb is different. So you should expect to get different results. 

    Unfortunately the example did not support Sean's statement. The same lemma appeared in both subject:Moses verb:to say and subject:Moses verb:to say, to tell. The latter having fewer and different entries than the former. There may be a clear explanation in the semantics - but I haven't seen it yet.






    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."

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 55,583

    It seems the expected behavior for clause search is more of a 1:1 correspondence between the lemma and the gloss. I believe (Sean can clarify as he sees fit) that we're discussing ways to do this internally.

    This certainly is not true for myself - what I do expect is to be able to understand the results. I'm thinking that the problem may be that the same gloss is used for different senses. I would expect a many-to-many relationship between lemma and sense and a many-to-many relationship between sense and gloss. However, I would expect lemmas, senses, and glosses to all be unique i.e. no duplicates.






    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."

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 55,583

    the "lexical value" fields from the Lexham Greek NT Interlinear.

    Okay, I've identified one major error in my thought.

    • I am offered verb:to say --- it works as i expect
    • I am offered verb:to say, to tell --- I am expecting to tell OR to say 'cause that is what a comma means in a search argument NOPE Logos expected me to see "to say, to tell" is a single argument which contrasts with "to say"

    "to say" is one verb sense; "to say, to tell" is another verb sense. The first has two lemmas that fall within it. The second has one lemma that falls within it - a different sense of that lemma falls within the first sense.

    Okay, Logos, 'fess up - who didn't see that giving a comma a different meaning in the clause search than in other searches was a dumb idea? Sorry I hadn't sorted this out earlier.






    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."

  • DominicM
    DominicM Member Posts: 2,995 ✭✭✭

    MJ. Smith said:

    Okay, Logos, 'fess up - who didn't see that giving a comma a different meaning in the clause search than in other searches was a dumb idea?

    Subtle.. real subtle.. but agree its "rather" confusing from what I have been able to follow

    Never Deprive Anyone of Hope.. It Might Be ALL They Have

  • Rick Ausdahl
    Rick Ausdahl Member Posts: 1,727 ✭✭✭

    See the thread titled "BUG with Clause Search?" at http://community.logos.com/forums/p/59899/427032.aspx for additional examples of confusing/unexpected results and a reply from Logos about them.

    In fairness to Logos and perhaps to other L5 users who find the clause search to work as expected, perhaps I should say, examples of results that are confusing/unexpected to me.

  • fgh
    fgh Member Posts: 8,948 ✭✭✭

    MJ. Smith said:

    Unfortunately the example did not support Sean's statement.

    Oops. Guess I shouldn't say anything when I don't even have L5 yet.[:)]

    On the other hand: if Sean Boisen can't get it right, I refuse to [:$] because I didn't![:D]


    MJ. Smith said:

    Okay, I've identified one major error in my thought.

    • I am offered verb:to say --- it works as i expect
    • I am offered verb:to say, to tell --- I am expecting to tell OR to say 'cause that is what a comma means in a search argument NOPE Logos expected me to see "to say, to tell" is a single argument which contrasts with "to say"

    "to say" is one verb sense; "to say, to tell" is another verb sense. The first has two lemmas that fall within it. The second has one lemma that falls within it - a different sense of that lemma falls within the first sense.

    Okay, Logos, 'fess up - who didn't see that giving a comma a different meaning in the clause search than in other searches was a dumb idea?

    OK, I haven't seen this feature in real life yet, but this seems perfectly logical to me. It's never occurred to me that verb:to say, to tell implied an OR (for that I would have expected verb:to say OR verb:to tell or verb:(to say,to tell). I've always associated to lexicons and the Search dropdown, where to x, to y would imply a different lemma than to x. But different sense makes sense as well (pun intended). 


    Mac Pro (late 2013) OS 12.6.2

  • Ruben Gomez
    Ruben Gomez Member Posts: 145 ✭✭

    I believe these results will become less baffling when Boolean operators are implemented as part of the Clause Search feature. I have no idea when that will happen, but I'm certainly looking forward to it.

    Rubén Gómez

  • Richard Lyall
    Richard Lyall Member Posts: 1,040 ✭✭✭


    This is not at all intuitive, and I wonder how useful it is as a feature in its current incarnation. It sounds like other search methods are more reliable in the meantime.

    It seems to me that usability and intuitiveness are taking a back seat at the moment, because the feature is not properly thought through. To rely on the results at the moment requires an indepth knowledge of the process and the underlying data, which works against the whole purpose of it being an intuitive and easy to use feature it seems to me.

    In the meantime is there ANY documentation about how to construct Clause Searches and how to understand the results? 

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,357

    In the meantime is there ANY documentation about how to construct Clause Searches and how to understand the results? 

    Nothing in the wiki.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 55,583

    fgh said:

    but this seems perfectly logical to me.

    The problem is that on one hand Logos tells us that they have assigned multiple senses when there are multiple senses that fit. However, when we go to create a search, the multiple senses suddenly become a single sense. Logos can't have it both ways - we need to be able to distinguish multiple senses from a compound name of a single sense. It had seemed fine to me until I starting trying to predict the results of small changes in the search argument.






    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."

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 55,583

    In the meantime is there ANY documentation about how to construct Clause Searches and how to understand the results? 

    I can start some soon - after a Logos employee gives me a response to the one-to-one, one-to-many issue.






    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."