Searching on Roots?

[jdarlack]

I know that BW is not tagged by root (though Accordance is (http://www.accordancebible.com/blog/2006/06/discovering-our-roots.html) - hint hint nudge nudge ;) ;)). Is there a way of "faking" a search on two words in a string that are not the same lemma, but are the same root?

For instance, there is a funny little construction in James 5:17:Ἠλίας ἄνθρωπος ἦν ὁμοιοπαθὴς ἡμῖν, καὶ προσευχῇ προσηύξατο τοῦ μὴ βρέξαι, καὶ οὐκ ἔβρεξεν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἐνιαυτοὺς τρεῖς καὶ μῆνας ἕξ·In this verse is a construction where a dative noun (προσευχῇ) precedes a verb of the same root (προσηύξατο) as a means of intensification, similar to an infinitive absolute in Hebrew. Another example of this is in Genesis 2:17, where θανάτῳ ἀποθανεῖσθε translates the Hebrew מוֹת תָּמוּת.

Now, I'd like to search on all similar constructs in the Greek literature available in BibleWorks. I can perform this search:'*@nd* *@v*This, however, yields 2,886 verses and 3,111 hits in BGM alone! That's a lot of verses to wade through. I really want to find a repetition of roots! I know that one can search on repeated lemmas in a string:'#1@nd* #1@v*This comes close to what I want in theory, but it yields nothing in BibleWorks. This is a completely logical result, as there is no way that two lemmas would be the same, with one being a dative noun and the other a verb.

Is there a way in the command line to perhaps define a repetition of letters so that I could find all of the places where the same group of letters occur in a string - the first group of letters being defined as a dative noun, and the second exact same group of letters being defined as a verb?

[Michael Hanel]

Hmm. Having a root list would be the most helpful, but barring that, the best I can think of is this
;o *qum*@nd *qum*@v*

this searches for a string which is a dative noun FOLLOWED by a verb both of which must contain the string "qum"

This won't find instances of this phenomenon in cases where you don't actually know of actual possible strings however.

Did you try anything like that combination or is that helpful?

[jdarlack]

. . .the best I can think of is this . . . ;o *qum*@nd *qum*@v* . . . this searches for a string which is a dative noun FOLLOWED by a verb both of which must contain the string "qum" . . . I should have mentioned that possibility. It's close, but not quite what I want. :)

It would be nifty if there were a way to "plug in" a whole list of roots. Ultimately, I'd like to find all instances of the phenomenon regardless of the root - as long as the paired dative noun and verb are from the same root. I don't think it can be done at the present time. :(

It would be great if BibleWorks could at least add a feature that would allow one to look for a series of exactly repeated letters, not just words. This would also help in finding geminate nouns in Hebrew.