[B-Greek] RE: Advanced Grammatical Search using BibleWorks 6

moon at sogang.ac.kr moon at sogang.ac.kr
Sat Dec 25 20:22:39 EST 2004


Let me explain why my question in the previous message is important in grammatical search.
Further comments inserted in the message.


<BR>Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 20:11:24 +0900 (KST)
<BR>From: &lt;moon at sogang.ac.kr&gt;
<BR>Subject: [B-Greek] Advanced Grammatical Search using BibleWorks 6
<BR>To: "b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org" &lt;b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org&gt;
<BR>Message-ID: &lt;24063451.1103973084821.JavaMail.root at mail&gt;
<BR>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
<BR>
<BR>Hi, I just bought BibleWorks version 6, because I read that it has
<BR>the most powerful and general search engine. I have studied the
<BR>software for three days. I think it is really powerful. However, I
<BR>face a problem that looks very serious to me. I would like to know from
<BR>experienced users the solutioh to it. 
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>The problem is that the BibleWorks search engine has no notion of "phrase", e.g. noun phrase, 
<BR>verb phrase, prepositional phrase, adjectival phrase, adverbial phrase, etc. So, 
<BR>agreement constraints and  ordering constraints can be specified between lexical words, but
<BR>not between phrases which are constructed from multiple lexical words. 
<BR>
<BR>

Suppose we want to search for phrases of the form NOUN PHRASE KAI NOUN PHRASE KAI NOUN PHRASE.
Because a noun phrase can have many different forms, a noun phrase should be represented by
a OR box in BibleWorks. So, for example we would have:

Noun Phrase = OR (det noun, det noun adjective,  det noun adjective adjectiver,  det doun adjective adjective adjective ).
Here det = determininer such as the article, demonstrative adjective, etc.

Then the query  for NOUN PHRASE KAI NOUN PHRASE KAI NOUN PHRASE  would look like:

AND( OR(.....), KAI, OR(....), KAI, OR(....) ),

The ordering constraints for the constituents are :
 OR(...) is immediately followed by KAI, which is immediately followed by OR(...),
which is immediately followed by KAI, which is immediately followd by OR(...).

We may also specify agreement constraints between the constituent noun phrases.

Now, if BibleWorks does not allow me to specify ordering constraints or agreement constraints
between noun phrases, I have to specify them between the words of the noun phrases.

In the case of ordering constraints, I would have to specify them between the last word
of the first noun phrase and the first word of the second noun phrase.
For example, I have to specify ordering constraints between each of DET NOUN,
DET NOUN ADJECTIVE, DET NOUN ADJECTIVE ADJECTIVE, DET NOUN ADJECTIVE ADJECTIVE
ADJECTIVE and each of  DET NOUN,
DET NOUN ADJECTIVE, DET NOUN ADJECTIVE ADJECTIVE, DET NOUN ADJECTIVE ADJECTIVE
ADJECTIVE.

In the case of  agreement constraints, I would have to specify them between the head noun of
each of the first noun phrases and the head noun of each of the second noun phrases.
That is,  I have to specify agreement  constraints between the noun in  each of DET NOUN,
DET NOUN ADJECTIVE, DET NOUN ADJECTIVE ADJECTIVE, DET NOUN ADJECTIVE ADJECTIVE
ADJECTIVE and the noun in  each of  DET NOUN,
DET NOUN ADJECTIVE, DET NOUN ADJECTIVE ADJECTIVE, DET NOUN ADJECTIVE ADJECTIVE
ADJECTIVE.

Note the number and case of a noun phrase is inherited from the head noun of the noun
phrases. 

In sum, the number of ordering constraints and agreement constraints grows exponentially
as the alternative members of OR box increase.  If we want to describe a full patterns of
a noun phrase, I guess we would  need more than 20 or 30 patterns, so the OR Merge Box
for a noun phrase would have 20 or 30 members.  Specifying ordering constraints and
agreement constraints between each of 20 or 30 members of a OR Merge Box
and each of  20 or or 30 members of another OR Merge Box  is unmanageable. 

It is a mystery to me why BibleWorks does not allow me to specify ordering and agreement
constraints between noun phrases. The software already  introduced  the notion of phrases
by means of OR Merge Box and AND Merge Box. But it does not allow me to 
specify ordering and agreement constraints between them. 

It is so difficult. As I said above, we can interpret an ordering constraint between two noun phrases
as the ordering constraint between the last word of the first noun phrase and the first word of
the second noun phrase. If an OR Merge Box has multiple noun phrases, and an ordering
constraint is given between the first OR Merge Box and the second OR Merge Box,
the software can automatically generate the ordering constraints between each members
of the first OR box and each member of the second OR box. 
 
Also we can interpret an agreement constraint between two noun phrases
as the ordering constraint between the head noun of the first noun phrase and the head noun
 of the second noun phrase. The head noun of a noun phrase is well defined.
In general, the head word of a phrase, e.g. noun phrase, verb phrase, adjectival phrase,
prepositional phrase, is well defined.

Perphas, I misinterpreted what OR merge and AND merge boxes are. But then I would have to say
BibleWorks itself is confusing. I have learned computational linguistics as a computer scientist, and
wrote parsers in a logic-based computer language called PROLOG and other languages. The
way Bibleworks specifies search conditions looks like the way the so called "constraint-based grammar"
encodes the knowledge of language. In fact, Bibleworks seems to be a great achievement in that
it really implements a general search engine based on the idea of constraint-based grammar. 
It is really beyond an ad hoc search engine found in many BIble softwares. Especially because of 
that, I lament the lack of the notion of phrases in it. Or am wrong? I hope so.

Moon Jung
Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea
  


<BR>
<BR>BibleWorks has a "AND Merge Box" which can have  multiple Word Boxes as daughters. 
<BR>(We can declare it to be a subquery and give a name to it and save it as a query file.). I can
<BR>construct a Merge Box that represents a simple noun phrase. But that is the end. I cannot 
<BR>create an order arrow or an Agreement Box between a Merge box and a Word box/a Merge Box.
<BR>
<BR>    
<BR>The above observation is based on my reading of the manual and the tests of queries I constructed.
<BR>If I am wrong, please tell me so. Otherwise, please tell me if there is another way to solve my 
<BR>problem, or another Bible software that does what I want or allows me to write down rules or
<BR>constraints to do what I want to do. 
<BR>
<BR>Sincerely 
<BR>
<BR>Moon Jung
<BR>Sogang Univ, Seoul, Korea
<BR>
<


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