Searching for Hebrew vowels

[jakemccarty]

How does one create a search that looks for specific Hebrew vowels? I'm trying to look for the distinctives in the two prefix forms (yaqtul and yaqtulu), which are often clearly represented in certain forms such as III-heh's, middle weaks, etc... Thus, all I need to do is to search for the root ??HEH with a certain vowel pattern or the root ?WAW/YOD? with another vowel pattern.... but I can't figure out how to select certain vowels when searching.

Thanks!

[David Kummerow]

How does one create a search that looks for specific Hebrew vowels? I'm trying to look for the distinctives in the two prefix forms (yaqtul and yaqtulu), which are often clearly represented in certain forms such as III-heh's, middle weaks, etc... Thus, all I need to do is to search for the root ??HEH with a certain vowel pattern or the root ?WAW/YOD? with another vowel pattern.... but I can't figure out how to select certain vowels when searching.

Thanks!

One way would be to search on, say, the root *ו* (ie, anything-waw-anything) and limit the search to jussives on the one hand and non-jussives on the other. This method would then utilise the tagging in the WTM rather than user-defined vowel-pattern searching. If you want to define the vowel patterns themselves, maybe this could be done in constructing an inclusion/exclusion list?

By the way, do you have trouble cutting-and-pasting into Word? I often paste Hebrew text in and amongst English text. However, when the Hebrew is pasted from BW, it always wants to be right-justified rather simply be pasted into the English sentence itself. For example, I could write the following

The clause

after which I want to paste Hebrew text, say, the beginning of Gen 1:1. When this is pasted, it ends up like this:

בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים The clause

It should read:

The clause בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

To overcome the problem, I paste the Hebrew text into a new, separate line in the Word document after which I select it and cut-and-paste it into the desired place.

Just wondering if you're experiencing the same thing.

Regards,
David Kummerow.

[Charlie]

How does one create a search that looks for specific Hebrew vowels? I'm trying to look for the distinctives in the two prefix forms (yaqtul and yaqtulu), which are often clearly represented in certain forms such as III-heh's, middle weaks, etc... Thus, all I need to do is to search for the root ??HEH with a certain vowel pattern or the root ?WAW/YOD? with another vowel pattern.... but I can't figure out how to select certain vowels when searching.

What you are looking for isn't too difficult, but there are some things you need to understand in order to do vowel point sensitive searches. You should read the section in the manual on vowel point sensitive searches.

[moonryul]

How does one create a search that looks for specific Hebrew vowels? I'm trying to look for the distinctives in the two prefix forms (yaqtul and yaqtulu), which are often clearly represented in certain forms such as III-heh's, middle weaks, etc... Thus, all I need to do is to search for the root ??HEH with a certain vowel pattern or the root ?WAW/YOD? with another vowel pattern.... but I can't figure out how to select certain vowels when searching.

Thanks!

Hi, let me tell you what I would do (I am using Power User mode):

(1) As the first attached file shows, I would activate the Hebrew Keyboard and the Special Characters "keyboard", and type
the consonants and vowels. The second file shows that
the vowel sensitive search is active, and the special characters
keyin mode is active.
(2) In this example, I searched for "BaRaH", but I could
search for patterns as in *@nv... If I typed in @, the parts of
speech pop up so that I could select them.

Moon-Ryul Jung
Sogang University

[moonryul]

Please replace the 2nd file of the previous message by this one.
Moon-Ryul Jung

[David Kummerow]

Hi, let me tell you what I would do (I am using Power User mode):

(1) As the first attached file shows, I would activate the Hebrew Keyboard and the Special Characters "keyboard", and type
the consonants and vowels. The second file shows that
the vowel sensitive search is active, and the special characters
keyin mode is active.
(2) In this example, I searched for "BaRaH", but I could
search for patterns as in *@nv... If I typed in @, the parts of
speech pop up so that I could select them.

Moon-Ryul Jung
Sogang University

Hi,

My feeling is that this doesn't achieve the desired result as a) you say to "type the consonants and vowels"; and b) select a part of speech. b) could be overcome as you say by limiting the search only to @v* or even @v?i???+*J?*. To suit the type of search Jake is wanting to do, mutatis mutandis, your example of "BaRaH" would be "*a*a*". Do you see the difference? He wants to specify vowels only, with the consonants being whatever (or limited to waw, yod, etc). The question remains: can such a search be done where Hebrew vowels are specified but consonants not?

Regards,
David Kummerow.

[Philip Brown]

Hi, Jake,

Let's use your example of a III-Heh jussive verb. Say you want to find all III-heh jussives whose two vowels are patachs.

Here the steps I would take, assuming vowel-point sensitive searching is turned ON
1. Set CL to WTM, and enter .h??@v*+*Jb* (= any III-heh jussive verb)
2. Click on wrench & hammer button to the right of the CL and choose Graphical Search Engine (= ASE in 6.0)
3. Double click on the word box, to view the Word Box options
4. On the right side, under Options there is a textbox labeled "Match the following spec in the WTT"
5. In this text box type y ; INS-Key 1 INS-key ; INS-key 1 which should give you µµ;y:
6. Make sure you have Vowel point sensitive searching turned for the query (I didn't the first 5 times I tried this example and got no hits)!

This will find all III-heh jussives whose initial consonant is a yod with a patach under it, whose second consonant (with or without a dagesh) has a patach under it, followed by a final consonant without any vowel under it. For a list of the key strokes for consonant and vowel wildcards, see Tools | Options | Wildcards.

You should get 4 verses: Gen. 44:33; Jos. 7:3; Ruth 1:8; 2 Sam. 2:6

Hopefully that points you down the right road.

[jakemccarty]

Thank you for this help Phillip, Moonryul, and David--I appreciate it. Hopefully I will be able to locate several yaqtuls without the waw (the waw + yaqtul and yaqtulu forms are simply too obvious).

I have yet another question: how does one type a short O class vowel? And closely related to this question: which philosophy of shewa's does BW ascribe to? This of course often affects when one is to read a long A class vs. short O class?

Hi, Jake,

Let's use your example of a III-Heh jussive verb. Say you want to find all III-heh jussives whose two vowels are patachs.

Here the steps I would take, assuming vowel-point sensitive searching is turned ON
1. Set CL to WTM, and enter .h??@v*+*Jb* (= any III-heh jussive verb)
2. Click on wrench & hammer button to the right of the CL and choose Graphical Search Engine (= ASE in 6.0)
3. Double click on the word box, to view the Word Box options
4. On the right side, under Options there is a textbox labeled "Match the following spec in the WTT"
5. In this text box type y ; INS-Key 1 INS-key ; INS-key 1 which should give you µµ;y:
6. Make sure you have Vowel point sensitive searching turned for the query (I didn't the first 5 times I tried this example and got no hits)!

This will find all III-heh jussives whose initial consonant is a yod with a patach under it, whose second consonant (with or without a dagesh) has a patach under it, followed by a final consonant without any vowel under it. For a list of the key strokes for consonant and vowel wildcards, see Tools | Options | Wildcards.

You should get 4 verses: Gen. 44:33; Jos. 7:3; Ruth 1:8; 2 Sam. 2:6

Hopefully that points you down the right road.

[David Kummerow]

5. In this text box type y ; INS-Key 1 INS-key ; INS-key 1 which should give you µµ;y:

Thanks for pointing out the use of the INS-key. With this key one can specify vowels but leave consonants open. So that makes this type of search possible.

I have yet another question: how does one type a short O class vowel? And closely related to this question: which philosophy of shewa's does BW ascribe to? This of course often affects when one is to read a long A class vs. short O class?

I assume by short O class vowels you mean holem, qamets hatuf, and qibbuts? You'd have to do a sparate search on each one, wouldn't you, as the database isn't tagged for the "O class vowel" category?

Regarding the theory of shewas, my guess is that shewa is taken to represent two functions, viz. vowel reduction and syllable closure (aka vocal and silent shewas). But if you don't actually use the morphological tagging to retrieve jussives etc but by your own inputted vowels etc., then what shewa theory is adobted in the program doesn't really matter since you won't be using it.

Regards,
David Kummerow.

[jakemccarty]

I guess my question regarding shewa's centers around the 2 schools of shewa's and when it is vocal/silent besides the obvious cases "silent follows short, loud after long." This problem becomes acute when the Masoretes have a vocal shewa following what should be a QH. To compensate for these Masoretic traditions, different strands of thought emerged about how to conceive of the shewa when faced with this dilema: should the reading of a shewa determine how to a qametz/qametz hatuf or should the qametz/qametz hatuf determine the reading? Who wags the tail, the dog of the tail? This situation (which I know almost nothing about) seems to be associated with mater's and how they function because the Masoretes were did not necessarily look to Semitic cognates.

I guess I'm primarily asking how to write a qametz hatuf? Perhaps the Westminster Tagging people would be better to ask about shewas because BW is fundamentally delivering their conclusions.

Now... if we only had inscriptions. A title already available in computer format that the owner of the parsing is willing to let BW integrate.