I am hoping someone will correct me on this post. Maybe a Logos user or maybe someone from Logos. But I saw an introductory video to using the syntax search from Logos’ Andersen-Forbes syntax database, and I was not impressed.
Let me get right to it. About minute 12, the tutorial commences a syntax search. The search is for all finite verbs and their subjects (whereas in a morphological database, you’d have to search for fininte verbs and nouns within a certain number of words range, and then make decisions on which nouns are subjects) in the book of Genesis. At 13:20 min and 13:31 min, the results are shown. The narrator shows the power of this search tool pointing out all the finite verbs and subjects in highlight. But I noticed one subject-fininte verb pair that the search missed: והארץ היתה of Gen 1.2 at minute 13:20. I’d like to use the database myself to further test its capabilites. But alas, the soon-to-come Logos for Mac does not include the database.
From a pedagogical perspective, this kind of searching is not helpful as students ought to learn how to make syntax decisions for themselves. And as an advanced user, what if I disagree with Andersen-Forbes’ syntactic decisions? Both students and advanced users will benefit from technologies that enhance their own thinking ability in syntax and broader linguistic issues. The syntax searching available from Logos does not do it.
I think one mistake is better than having to pouring through 100 false hits (also with the possibility of missing at least one), though looking at it, its not the database that’s the problem for Gen 1.2, but the search error or any human error is just as possible with morphological searches as it is with syntax searches.
Logos actually has a number of syntactic databases for Hebrew, which means you could actually construct the same search on each to compare results. I do with with Greek pretty regularly.
As to the question of pedagogy, I’m not sure is using a syntax database = not thinking about syntax on one’s own. If its taught correctly, recognizing that these sorts of databases are tools there shouldn’t be a problem – and that’s the responsibility of the teacher, not the tool. And syntax tagging forces both the student and the teaching to think beyond word level, something that I don’t think morphological searches do quite as well.
Finally, both morphological databases and syntax databases can be easily viewed as either subjective or objective. Not everyone’s going to agree on how a give word is parsed and not everyone is going to agree whether a given prepositional phrase is functioning within a noun phrase or at the clause level. But in both cases, most people are going to agree that most words are parsed correctly and most people are going to agree that a given phrase is the subject a clause. At both the morphological level and the syntax level, the majority of information is clear.
Mike,
I could not agree more on the subjectivity of morphological and syntax databases. I find myself disagreeing more than I think I ought to. I understand why some old-timers, though some not-so-old as well, refuse to use computer assisted studying at all. Yes, most often I have no issue with electronic parsers, but sometimes I do.
I don’t think this one mistake is acceptable. Its the second verse in the Bible and its right next to similar constructions that are highlighted. And to what search or human error are you referring? The video is offered as a basic introduction. Its supposed to be error free.
I don’t think using a syntax database = not thinking about syntax either. But I do think that those databases represent someone else’s decisions. I’m reading Hebrew and Greek so I can make my own. Other people’s syntax decisions, like commentaries, can be good discussion partners, but they are not how we should teach. I wish Accordance, BibleWorks, and Logos would expand their searching and diagramming capabilties to include multiple linguistic models and theories. I’m not saying Andersen-Forbes is not helpful. I’m saying Logos’ video introducing it is not impressive and includes a clear mistake.
Morphological databases are not at all meant to do anything besides word-level analysis. They are not lacking in anything as they have accomplished what they have set out to do: parse words. That’s it. It would be unreasonable to expect them to give syntax information.
I looked at the video, it is a human error. And its pretty simple – the search specified the order Verb – Subject, but Gen 1.2 has the order Subject – Verb. So as I said, its not the data, its a human error. To get all the hits, he would have had to do one of the following:
Option #1:
Clause
Immediate Constituent – Verb
Immediate Constituent – Subject
OR
Clause
Immediate Constituent – Subject
Immediate Constituent – Verb
Option #2:
Clause
Unordered Group
Immediate Constituent – Verb
Immediate Constituent – Subject
I should say that the ability to select “unordered group” wasn’t available when the video was made. They added that later.
By the way, this shows another benefit of syntax databases. The ability to study word order phenomena becomes a lot easier.
By the way, for the record, I do understand. In terms of Greek (I don’t know Hebrew very well), I disagree with Opentext.org’s analysis regularly, but that has a lot to do with the fact that I find their analysis inconsistent and idiosyncratic at times – relative clauses are sometimes tagged as subordinate clauses and other times as embedded clauses. If anything, we need more syntax databases to check against each other, something I hope to contribute to in my MA studies.
Hi – I’m the narrator voice on the Andersen-Forbes videos. A friend directed me to this post, and I need to correct both the poster and a commenter (more the former than the latter, since the commenter corrected the poster for me!).
As “Mike” noted, the reason that the poster found an “error” in the search is because the search specified a Verb-Subject word order. The results are not in error, nor are the tags in error. “Mike” has it correct – except for the continued use of the terms “error” and “mistake”. There was no error in the data, nor was there an error in the setup of the search. The search just didn’t ask for the Subject-Verb word order; that’s all.
This is actually one of the tricky things about working with syntax databases – the search constructed must honor the order of the constituents. What you ask for (and in what order) is what you get.
Well I asked for correction and I got it.
I was unaware of the search’s specifications as to word order, however, it would have been helpful to state that in the video (but I get it, its an intro video), and that’s one of the advantages of having the option to search for specific word order or within a word range. The Logos syntax search described above does not render mistakes, but it could be explained more clearly (for instance, it is called a ’subject-verb search’ at 11:57).
This database is very interesting and we look forward to more posts on it and other issues in the ‘morphological or syntactic database’ discussion.
Dr. Heiser,
I apologize for using the wrong word. I didn’t take the time to watch the entire video to see exactly what you were searching for and I should have.
Daniel,
I think it’s great that you show interest in these matters.
One of these days it would be fun to go after a particular syntax question in the course of which the strengths and weaknesses of several different search engines would become evident.
A fun example: Gen 1:1, whether and on what grounds one should translate “When God began . . .” or similar rather than the traditional “In the beginning God created . . .”