Searching the Maqqeph in Hebrew

[Gandalf]

Hello!
I'm trying to search a word with maqqepf (actually "lo-") but if I write the "-" WTM refuses to do the search. How can I include the maqqeph in the command line?
Thanks,

[Philip Brown]

Hi, Gandalf,

As far as I know, it can't be done. The maqqef is not marked in the WTM by any code and BW does not regard it as a searchable character in the WTT.

[David Kummerow]

See the first attached query which will retrieve instances of maqqef.

The second attached query will retrieve instaces of maqqef preceded by לא.

Regards,
David Kummerow.

[Philip Brown]

I'm impressed, Dave! I had forgotten about the custom punctuation options in GSA.

[Andrew Fincke]

I'm impressed, too.
But why not delete maqqefs from the display/print text? Take a look at what the experts in Israel have done. Go to www.mechon-mamre.org, and pop up one of their text-files, e.g. www.mechon-mamre.org/i/to8.htm for 1 Samuel. They've kept the maqqefs out of respect and turned them into dashes and then added alot of unnecessary commas. Look, e.g., at 1 Sam 1:21: "Elkana, and-all of his house, to sacrifice", which would be alot nicer and simpler to read: "Elkana and all of his house to sacrifice". You're going to have a hard time waking up the snoozer in the front row with a sermon on maqqefs in 1 Samuel 1:21! By the way, the mechon text is alot more agreeable with the Sony e-book reader than cutting and pasting text from BW7 into a Word file and making a .pdf out of it. The BW7 text is too small to read, and the verses are separated by unnecessary line-breaks.
Andrew

[Andrew Fincke]

Talked to the rabbi today, and he explained the matter of maqqefs. Contrary what was said in an earlier thread, they are part and parcel of cantillation and make no sense without cantillation. They join two words, the first of which has no independent function in the chanting. In the scroll read in the synagogue they don't exist, they don't exist in Dead Sea scrolls; and they are properly left out of text which doesn't claim to be a replication of the 1000 year old (happy birthday!) masoretic text of Ben Chayyim. For someone like me, for whom the vowels only serve as explanation to show how the Greek translators differed from the rabbis in reading unpointed Hebrew, the maqqefs are superfluous, and it bothers me to have to delete them.
Andrew

[David Kummerow]

But why not delete maqqefs from the display/print text?

Hi Andrew,

I take it that you mean when you choose not to display accents and vowels in BW. If so, I agree with you: they should not display when accents and vowels are turned off. Similarly, sin and shin dots should not display, too.

Regards,
David.

[Andrew Fincke]

Bingo! A word to the wise is sufficient
-A.

[Andrew Fincke]

Although what in the world does this mean:
"Similarly, sin and shin dots should not display, too."
Since when are sin and shin dots cantillation? I'm just deleting musical notes, not the vowels.
-A.

[David Kummerow]

Although what in the world does this mean:
"Similarly, sin and shin dots should not display, too."
Since when are sin and shin dots cantillation? I'm just deleting musical notes, not the vowels.
-A.

Sin and shin dots, like the vowels, accents, and dageshes, are the Masoretes' orthographic additions to the consonantal text. The orthographic letter ש actually represents two separate phonemes which the Masoretes chose to distinguish by the placement of the dots: שׂ and שׁ. I'm not saying the dots are cantillation, just that if cantillation and vowels are selected not to display, so shouldn't the dots.

Regards,
David Kummerow.