De-Inflection Software?

Dr. Dale M. Wheeler dalemw at multnomah.edu
Mon Sep 23 11:30:17 EDT 2002


B'Greekers:

As someone who has been working with parsed original language electronic 
texts for about 25 years now, permit me to make a somewhat crass 
observation, which I'm sure some of you'all won't like...

The "De-Inflection" software, as you call it, sounds to me like it needs 
one of the parsed databases already in existence as its foundation, 
especially if it is being written by someone who doesn't know Greek (or 
Hebrew).  One simple example would be irregular verb principle parts...it 
would probably take someone without a knowledge of Greek several hundred 
man hours at least just to be able to track down all the various irregular 
verb forms and their alternates (eg., DEIKNUMI vs DEIKNUW) just in the NT; 
unless of course one had one of the GNT parsed databases, in which someone 
who does know Greek had invested the time to do the work for you.

A bit of history...the CCAT texts were originally parsed by programs 
written by Dick Whitaker, et.al., who were experts in the languages and 
programming over 25 years ago, and I'm still fixing the mistakes made by 
the parser (and the grad students and others even less qualified who tried 
to fix the problems, anomalies, etc.).  If those guys couldn't solve all of 
the problems with programming, I would have serious doubts that anyone else 
can.

As far as I know EVERY single GNT, LXX, and HMT parsed database comes with 
a very clear license agreement about usage, and the use you'all seem to be 
describing is clearly in violation of those agreements.  I have always 
found it very strange that people are quite scrupulous when it comes to 
using/mis-using material that is in print, but feel perfectly free to use 
electronic material, as if it were in some different category.  In fact, 
the license agreements for the electronic texts are even more restrictive 
than for print materials.  Evangelical Christians seem to be at the 
forefront of ignoring the biblical principle that a workman is worthy of 
his wages, and thus have misused, misappropriated, etc., etc., etc., these 
text apparently without a second thought.

So here's a suggestion...rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, why not 
contact the copyright holders of these already existing databases and offer 
to help their ongoing work on these texts.  There is still a lot of work to 
be done on the texts, and there are all kinds of additional data that can 
be added to these texts in order to make them even better research 
tools.  Some of the auto parsers, etc.,  discussed in this thread would be 
easy to build with the parsed databases already in existence, and would 
make excellent add-on tools for people trying to learn the language or for 
people doing serious research. And with those things easily done, you could 
then apply your skills to assisting someone who really knows the languages 
in developing new add on tools and data and really make a significant long 
term investment in original language studies which will have an impact for 
generations to come.

The one exception to most of the above is James Tauber who has been working 
with the CCAT parsed GNT for several years, I believe with the permission 
of the copyright holders, UPenn and Bob Kraft.  I've tried several times to 
get James to work with me, but he prefers to go it alone apparently...I'm 
not trying to criticize him by saying this, since he is certainly free to 
do as he pleases....I just know that if I'd had him working with me on the 
GNT and LXX over the past several years, we could have made a lot more 
progress with those texts, because he is quite knowledgeable and skilled in 
these areas; I fear this was a poor attempt at a compliment...

If anyone is interested in making such a contribution of their talents, 
here are the people to talk to:

For the GNT:  Prof. Paul Miller at The GRAMCORD 
Institute:  scholars at gramcord.org
For the LXX: Dr. Bernard Taylor for CATSS:  <taylorb at earthlink.net>
For the HMT: Dr. Kirk Lowery for Westminster: <klowery at wts.edu>


Blessings...

Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Editor, the GRAMCORD Morphological Greek New Testament
Co-Editor, the Groves-Wheeler Westminster Hebrew Morphology
Associate Editor, the UPenn/CCAT/CATSS Morphological LXX


***********************************************************************
Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Research Prof., Biblical Languages          Multnomah Bible College
8435 NE Glisan St.                                  Portland, OR 97220
V: 503-2516416                                 E: dalemw at multnomah.edu
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