Hebrew morphology - 2nd m/f singular suffix in pause - mistakes galore!

[doc_dave]

This is one of those things that must have an obvious answer, so I'm probably being rash in using such a provocative subject line!

But anyway: it appears to be the case that many, many instances of "lak" (with long qametz = lamed preposition + 2nd singular suffix) at the end of the verse are incorrectly parsed as 2nd feminine forms when they are actually 2nd masculine in pause. These pausal forms are discussed in GKC § 29n. One example: Gen 14:21, where the antecedent is Abram but the "lak" is parsed as 2fs. In Jonah 4:4 "lak" is parsed 2fs; the antecendent is Jonah.

There are loads more -- 86 occurrences of these, in fact, although not all of them are wrong (Ruth, Esther, and SoS examples are correct). And BWks does find 25 examples of pausal "lak" correctly tagged as 2ms.

This is in BWks 9.0.12.627. Can someone explain this anomaly?

Update: I just checked for this with preposition bet, and they all look correct (see, e.g. 1 Sam 24:13, 14); so too with the direct object marker (e.g. Gen 6:18; Ezek 2:1). It's just with lamed that the problem comes (and it is the most frequent of these three cases where the phenomenon occurs).

[doc_dave]

... many instances of "lak" (with long qametz = lamed preposition + 2nd singular suffix) at the end of the verse are incorrectly parsed as 2nd feminine forms ...

This is in BWks 9.0.12.627. Can someone explain this anomaly?

No one ... really? Anyone?

[Donald Cobb]

No one ... really? Anyone?

Hello Dave,

I personally haven't taken the time to look at this issue, but I can see 1) how the problem could have arisen and 2) that if your analysis is right, the parsing certainly needs to be corrected. So you might be better off sending a word to BibleWorks directly, and have them see about getting the problem solved.

Being more specialized in NT, my analyses of the OT text don't usually take me into searches on that level of detail, and when I see a form before an atna or a silluq, I naturally take it as a pausal form. But that doesn't mean that your comment isn't relevant, on the contrary!

Blessings,

Don Cobb
Aix-en-Provence, France

[Michael Hanel]

No one ... really? Anyone?

The morphology is not BibleWorks' intellectual property, but the Groves Center. Did you try them?

[doc_dave]

@Michael - Thanks! That was the pointer I needed. I've been in touch with them before, and will follow up with them on this matter. If there's anything of interest that comes of it, I'll post back here.

@Don - Appreciate the reply. I was starting to feel lonely!

[Michael Hanel]

@Michael - Thanks! That was the pointer I needed. I've been in touch with them before, and will follow up with them on this matter. If there's anything of interest that comes of it, I'll post back here.

Occasionally the Groves people have posted here, but yeah I think going straight to them is the thing. The only BibleWorks issue here would be if somehow they didn't accurately represent the material given to them by the Westminster Hebrew Morphology database.

[doc_dave]

...I think going straight to them is the thing...

The good news, for any who are watching/interested, is that I got a very helpful reply back from the Groves Center. Some of these errors have been fixed, many are now being caught. There are dozens being changed.

Here's the bad news. It's also worth noting that the Westminster Hebrew Morphology module that drives the parsing in BWks is now at version 4.20, while the version that ships with BWks 9 is still the 2008 v. 4.10 - that's lagging quite a ways behind, then. It would be great to have this module updated, since some fixes have been introduced as long as four or more years ago that are still absent from BWks 9 (or such appears to be the case).

Glad there's action on this, and let's hope for cutting edge modules soon.

[CapnKirk]

Just to be accurate: our official release of WHM is currently at 4.18, and the version in my version of BW9 is 4.14. Our in-house development version is at 4.20 and will be released next year. It is not unusual for BibleWorks to be a release or two behind. It takes significant effort to update WHM (and other databases, I assume), since so many other features depend on it.

So, it's a known problem and we've fixed many occurrences. Thanks for the report! They are an important way that we continue to improve WHM.

[doc_dave]

Just to be accurate: ....

Accuracy is the theme of this thread, after all. Thanks for this information, Kirk. I was pulling some numbers from the BWks 9 help file, not sure if it stays up-to-date with module changes. Grateful for your input!

[Michael Hanel]

Just to be accurate: our official release of WHM is currently at 4.18, and the version in my version of BW9 is 4.14. Our in-house development version is at 4.20 and will be released next year. It is not unusual for BibleWorks to be a release or two behind. It takes significant effort to update WHM (and other databases, I assume), since so many other features depend on it.

So, it's a known problem and we've fixed many occurrences. Thanks for the report! They are an important way that we continue to improve WHM.

I'm not completely "in the know," but I believe that each time BibleWorks releases a new version, they update to the latest release of WHM. So although nothing has been mentioned lately about BW10 other than "sometime in 2015," I imagine that you'll see the changeover happen then. I could be mistaken but I just don't recall updates of WHM happening at other times.