[B-Greek] tool for vocabulary distribution of GNT books?

James Tauber jtauber at jtauber.com
Wed Sep 27 16:07:08 EDT 2006


It sounds like what you are looking for are the statistically  
improbable words, calculated by their z-score in a subtext versus the  
overall text.

z = (p_hat - p_0) / sqrt ((p_0 * (1 - p_0)) / n_t)

where

p_hat = t / n_t  [ratio of word in subtext]
p_0 = o / n_o    [ratio of word in overall text]

where

t = occurrences of word in subtext
o = occurrences of word in overall text
n_t = total number of words in subtext
n_o = total number of words in overall text


As far as I can tell, KU/WN only appears once in Matthew, same as  
Luke, Philippians, 2 Peter and Revelation so it's not that good an  
example.

But let's pick something like A)GA/PH in 1John:

t = 18
o = 116
n_t = 2141
n_o = 138019

so

p_hat = 18 / 2141
p_0 = 116 / 138019

(note that p_hat is about 10x p_0)

and therefore

z = 12.08

which is very high for a z-score.

0 would mean as expected, positive means more frequent than expected  
and negative means less frequent than expected.


As well as checking individual words, it's obviously possible to find  
the most unusually frequent (or most unusually rare) words for a  
given subtext.

In the case of 1John, for example, the ten most unusually frequent  
words are (in order, most unusually frequent first)

TEKNION (z-score of 19.5!), AGAPAW, MENW, ANTICRISTOS, CRISMA,  
ENTOLH, OTI, YEUSTHS, AGAPH and KOSMOS

The most unusually rare words in 1John is DE, which I guess isn't  
that surprising. DE is also unusually rare in GJohn and, no surprise,  
OUN is the most unusually frequent.


Hope this helps.


James


On 27/09/2006, at 6:28 PM, shoes6 at juno.com wrote:

> Hello B-Greekers,
>
> Specialized vocabulary is a part of each book's specific message, as
> well as the writer's style.  How do I find a list of which vocabulary
> is emphasized in which books?  Surely the information I want is
> available in a book or website somewhere.  If I knew the *name* of the
> tool, I could look for it.
>
> I want to find out which words are found most frequently in any given
> book of the NT.  For example, the word KUWN ("dog") appears more in
> Matthew than in any other NT book, if I am correct.
>
> I don't really care much about the word for "dog"; that was just a
> silly example.
>
> Anyway, is there a tool that will help me find which book emphasizes
> which vocabulary?  If so, what is that tool called?  Is it  
> available on
> the internet?
>
> Thank you very much!
>
> Ted Shoemaker
>
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