ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ

I love the new feature in Logos 4 called, “Clippings,” which basically makes it possible to gather content from a variety of books in the same place. As a result, I’ve developed in one location a variety of discussions of the Greek Verb.

Here’s what it looks like:

By clicking on the spot I’ve highlighted, you create a new clipping:

Ignoring the very poorly written quality of my annotation (it’s hard to write with a mouse), you can see what it’s possible to add emphasis with bold, italics, or underlining in your clippings after you’ve created a new Clippings File.

But more importantly is the fact that you can then add notes and comments to the clipping itself:

I’ve gone through about a dozen grammars like this so far. Some are better than others. Swetnam on Aspect is pretty good. My biggest concern is that his highly unusual use of terminology is only going to confuse students in the long run who continue their Greek studies. And for that reason, I wouldn’t recommend his particular discussion. Anyway, that’s beside the point. We’re talking about a software feature, not a grammatical category that’s only caused confusion over the past 20 decades.

Other cool features of “Clippings” include the ability to instantly get bibliographic info. If you click here:

The Clipping “flips around” and you see this:

And you can choose whatever style you want – though sometimes there are still issues to fix, but either way, the information is still there for your citation already.

Also, text formatting is easily available for both your notes as well as the clipping itself:

And these follow the typical shortcuts: ctrl-b for Bold, ctrl-i for italics, etc.

Finally, it’s possible to create multiple collections of clippings depending on what you’re working on.

And then name it whatever you want:

New Clippings Documents are also available via the File Menu:

So cool and so helpful for collecting and annotating your information.

Today is a day that I have been waiting for quite some time:

LOGOS 4

Over the past few months, Logos has been kind enough to allow me to participate in the private beta testing of their (formerly) forthcoming version of their library system.

And let me tell you, it has been exciting.

The new version changes just about everything. And it’s for the good.

• The new interface is clean and simple.
• Window management has been completely revolutionized.
• Library management is less time consuming & more feature rich.
• New language tools have been developed & old ones have been redesigned.
• New resources & new library collections have been released with new content — including several resources that make me less interested in investing in another piece of software (e.g. my own collection now has Swete’s The Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint including the apparatus).

Interface & Window Management:

The basic interface now consists of three basic icons & three drop down menus in the top left corner:

“Home”, “Library”, & “Search” – all of which are rather self-explanatory. And “File” consists have various syntax searches, notes, visual filters, clippings, etc. that you might create as you go along. Under “Guides” we have the ever reliable passage guide, exegetical guide, & word study guide. All of which have received a nice face lift;

Organizing Windows has improved in some incredible ways. For one, it’s now possible to simple drag windows around and they resize to a highlighted area:

But probably the most exciting thing is the fact that now windows can be separated from the central program window:

Which then results in:

This definitely makes Logos 4 much easier to work with when using multiple programs at the same time compared to Logos 3 – or using multiple monitors (which I would love to have, but don’t).

Finally, had you set up your windows in a certain way a week ago that you want to go back to? Didn’t save it? Can’t remember exactly what it was? Well, Layouts has changed all of that:

There’s a reason though. Anyway, it is now possible go back and pick out a particular layout that you had used a few days before, rename it, and save it as your own. Currently, I have four such layouts. Why two Layouts with virtually the same name? Well, it’s a long story.

The Library

With Version 4, we can now both tag and rate the books in our libraries. Note that haven’t spent too much time ranking books –- Swanson’s dictionary is gets two stars. That’s not because it’s bad, just that it’s not what I would want. It’s a great dictionary for a quick gloss, but I’m very, very rarely interested in a quick gloss. Just want to put a plug in here for the slow, detail reading of lexical entries of full-fledged lexicons like BDAG, LSJ, GELS, & L&N. It gets two stars instead of one because it’s still far superior than Strongs.

Ah, but now we come to the interesting stuff in the library: new resources. Now what follows, as I understand it minimally requires the Original Languages Library, though you will need to go look at Logos’ website to double check on that. And you may have noticed it in a screen shot above:

We finally have something to compete with (and absolutely crush!) Opentext.org’s database. These are the same trees that Andi Wu & Randall Tan discussed at International SBL this past year, as well as at BibleTech:2009 (where there’s also a PDF & mp3 available for download).

It’s doesn’t do everything. But it’s a massive leap in the right direction. For one, unlike Opentext.org, Cascadia actually recognizes that there are more than four types of constituents (Predicate, Subject, Complement, & Adjunct). Unfortunately, the treatment of discontinuous phrases is just about the same and needs work. But Cascadia brings a lot to the table:

• Actual Phrase Structure
• More Clause Types – the inclusion of “Verb Elided Clause” as a clause type is incredibly important – especially for Paul.
• Recognition that, semantically speaking, copulas (e.g. εἰμί) are not predicates.

Here’s what it looks like in action:

Now I’ve only been able to search using this new database for about a month now, but I definitely like what I have seen, generally speaking. More than anything, I’ve appreciated being able to do the same search using both Cascadia and Opentext.org together and compare the search results.

For example, ditransitive clauses have had my curiosity off and on for some time now, so I constructed this search in Cascadia using the new and improved Syntax Search Dialog (It’s similar to the old one, but now you can drag and drop, which makes it easier to use and is so cool):

And essentially the same search in Opentext.org:

The results were rather interesting. Opentext received more hits:

The first two in Matthew aren’t ditransitive in Cascadia because they both use copulas. Thus, it is the initial adjective that receives the Predicate Function rather than the verb. An adjective cannot be an Object if it is the semantic predicate of the clause.

Acts 2:39 is not ditransitive in Cascadia because Opentext.org has incorrectly annotated ἂν as a Complement, which it very much is not. And Acts 25:27 has the rather semantically empty, δοκέω, and thus the semantic predicate of the clause is ἄλογον.

Finally, 2 Corinthians 9:1 is not ditransitive in Cascadia, again, because the verb of the clause is a copula.

So why did I go through all of this?

Well, for one, we finally have a second voice beside Opentext.org that provides an extremely beneficial balance & check for determining what the syntax of the text actually is. Of the five differences in this search, four of the were the result of Opentext.org’s simplicity (which, granted, at times is a good thing). But this search also revealed a tagging mistake in Opentext as well. Doing quality research is always going to be dependent upon the quality of the data we use. And now we have a significantly easier way to confirming what is the accurate syntactic annotation.

There is more to do in Greek syntax, of course, but I’ll leave that for another time. I’m planning on putting in another proposal to BibleTech:2010 on this very topic.

I’ll leave you with this: the preface from the Cascadia graphs, just to give you an idea of where they came from:

The Cascadia Syntax Graphs of the New Testament is derived from a new dynamic treebank project developed by the Asia Bible Society. The Greek Syntactic Treebank Project is built on the basis of a computer-readable Greek grammar, with the syntactic trees (graphs) directly generated by a parser. Manual checking and corrections are stored as data in a knowledge base to guide the parser. The syntax trees (graphs) are dynamically generated from the latest version of the grammar and knowledge base, which enables continual organic improvement and growth as the grammar and knowledge base are maintained and updated.

We humbly present this preliminary version of the syntax graphs to users of Logos version 4 and look forward to improving and expanding it in the future.

Randall Tan
Andi Wu
November, 2009

Andi Wu and Randall K. Tan, Cascadia Syntax Graphs of the New Testament (Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009).

There is much, much more to say, but I hope I’ve at least given you something to whet your appetite for the time being. Logos 4 is good enough that It’ll be replacing Logos 3 for me. Most definitely.

By the way, did I mention that as of version 4, my entire library is now indexed (which times some time, but is definitely worth it) and I can search my 2000 books in mere seconds for anything?

The Mac version of Logos 4 is in Alpha testing as we speak and will be have complete parity with the Windows version. That’s right, Mac users, you haven’t been ignored.

And did I mention at all Logos 4 for iPhone & iPod Touch is part of the deal?

Be sure to head over to LOGOS 4 to get the whole scoop and learn about new notes, clippings, handouts, editable passage, exegetical, & word study guides (or you can now create your own!). There’s so much that I could have shared, but I wanted to focus on the things that matter to me. So go, check it out: LOGOS 4.

Notes:

• All screenshots are illustrative. Resources shown may not be included in Logos 4 base packages – i.e. you need at least the Original Languages Library for either Opentext.org or Cascadia.
• Upgrade discounts are available for existing customers.

Other Reviews thus far:

Ricoblog,

Reuben Gomez

Steve Runge’s got a bit too.

Joe Miller

Thomas Black

Adam Couturier

Robert Pavich

Ken Morris

Chris Roberts

I saw this video at Scott’s Blog. It made me think about how people complain about the search speeds in Logos Bible Software when they do syntax searches, Bible searches, morph searches, or library searches.

This stinks! I have to wait five minutes for my graphical query of every place in the NT, LXX, &  AF where an Adjective & the noun it modifiers are separated from a verb! What is this???

Come on, guys, you’re sitting in a plane in the sky — actually you could do that search while sitting in a plane in the sky! And you’d still have it done a good week before Moulton worked through Paul’s letters looking for the same construction!

On my last post, Carl made an insightful comment — one that  I’ve had myself, though not as well put — about this collection from Logos:

Biblical Languages: Reference Grammars and Introductions (19 Vols.)

He wrote,

Frankly, that’s an absurdly large collection; I can see putting it in a package with other reference works that are really Classical: Allen & Greenough, the Homeric grammar, and the like. But very few specialists are going to want that whole bundle.

There are some great books in the collection, but he’s right. It’s way too diverse. It would be far better if it were broken up into a couple less expensive collections.

Part of me wonders if the reason for putting all these books together is so that otherwise, they would never get enough orders for the less Biblical studies related books, e.g. the Syriac, Latin, & perhaps the Homeric Grammar…

I have a feeling that is the case, though even still, I may very well still suggest breaking this collection up.

Logos Bible Software is celebrating the launch of their new online Bible by giving away 72 ultra-premium print Bibles at a rate of 12 per month for six months. The Bible giveaway is being held at Bible.Logos.com and you can get up to five different entries each month! After you enter, be sure to check out Logos and see how it can revolutionize your Bible study.

Mark Stevens has begun a series looking at the benefits of Logos Bible Software for using commentaries – in this case, several Word Biblical Commentary Volumes:

Word Biblical Commentary Series for Logos Review: Part 1

I’ll be looking forward to reading his thoughts.

Daniel Doleys over at Text, Community & Mission just complete a multi-part review of Logos Bible Software for Mac. It seems that he rather enjoyed the software.

Be sure to check it out:

Installation and Support
Contents & Searching
Support Videos
Original Language Searches
Final Assessment

Stanley Porter and Andrew Pitts describe Opentext.org’s approach to syntax as follows, “Syntax is understood in terms of dependency relations, clause types and complementation structure.” [1] Dependency Relations are relatively self-explanatory. In a given phrase, such as “the man,” the article “the” is in a dependency relationship with the noun “man.” In of itself, there is no problem with such an approach since such relationships tend to be expressed in all syntactic frameworks.

The challenge and problem for Opentext.org’s implementation of such relationships is the larger problem. Opentext.org divides syntactic constituents based on grammatical relations: Subjects, Objects (which they refer to as Complements), Predicators, and Adjuncts. Each of these four categories then provides the bases through which dependency relations are described. The dependent modifiers are divided into several more categories, including four types of modifiers: Specifier, Definer, Qualifier, and Relator.[2]

From these labels for the Opentext.org analysis, it becomes clear rather quickly that the syntactic distinctions being made in the database are purely semantic in nature. What is disturbing about this is that distinctions being made by these semantic labels say nothing about the structure and ordering of the phrases in which they appear. It is impossible to make distributional predictions about, say, where a Specifier can or cannot occur.

Little can be said about what binds the various words labeled with a given modifier type. What do Articles have to do with Prepositions? What about different types of Definers? The distribution of an adjective like κακός is markedly different than that of πάς. And yet no distinction is made between them in Opentext.org.

The problem can be seen even more clearly when we attempt to examine the distribution of the various semantic categories provided by Opentext.org Can Specifiers appear before Definers? Yes. Can they occur after Definers? Yes. The same is true of Specifiers and Relators, Specifiers and Qualifiers, and every other pair of modifier types.

To put it quite frankly, there is no empirical basis in the Greek language for these categories as defined and implemented by Opentext.org to describe the word order or structure of Greek phrases.

So exactly how is this a beneficial way of describing Greek syntax when the categories used say nothing about Greek syntax?

[2] The Opentext.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament Glossary provides the following definitions for these terms (abbreviated here). A Modifier is “any word contained in a word group that is not a head term.”

“A Specifier is a modifier that classifies or identifies the word it modifies. Common examples of specifiers are articles, e.g. ἡ ἀδελφή, and prepositions, e.g. ἐν δόξη. In a prepositional phrase such as εἰς τὸν λόγον, both εἰς and τὸν are specifiers of λόγον.

A Definer is a modifier that attributes features to or further defines the word it modifies. Common examples of definers are adjectives (both attributive and predicative structure), appositional words or phrases, and adjectival clauses.

A Qualifier is a modifier that in some way limits or constrains the scope of the word it modifies. Common examples of qualifiers are words in the genitive and dative case, and also negative particles functioning at the word group level.

A Relator is a modifier which is specified by a preposition (i.e. the Relator is the object of a preposition) that modifies another element within the word group. For example, in the word group τὸ κατʼ ἐμὲ πρόθυμον, the term ἐμὲ is in a relator relationship with the head term πρόθυμον. This relationship only applies to prepositional phrases within word groups and not when the prepositional phrase functions as a clause component” (Stanley Porter, Matthew B. O’Donnell, Jeffery T. Reed, Randall Tan, and OpenText.org, The OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament Glossary (Bellingham, Wash.: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2006), n.p.

I retract all of my criticisms of the Opentext.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament. From this point on, I view Opentext.org as an excellent database.

Why the change of heart?

Well, today it hit me what Opentext.org is and what it is not.

As for what it is not, well, simply put, it is not a Syntactic Analysis; at least generally speaking. And regarding what it is, Opentext.org is a semantic database.

That is not to say that there isn’t syntax in the database. There is. Specifically, following Opentext.org’s definitions, the labels Clause,  Conjunction, Word Group, Head Term, and Connective are the syntactically conceived labels. But they are the only such labels in the database. Every other label used in Opentext.org is a semantic label, not syntactic. This includes terms like, “Subject” and “Complement,” which rightly according to Opentext are “functional unit[s]” (a good number of linguistic frameworks call them “grammatical relations” or grammatical functions”). Subjects, Objects, Complements, and Predicates are all semantic labels.

Now all of this doesn’t mean that I think Opentext is a satisfactory database. Its not. What it does, it does quite well and that is why I call it excellent above.

But.

By placing so much focus on semantics and so little on syntax, pragmatics, or other components of grammar, they’ve missed too much information for Opentext to be a satisfactory database. This is also why breakthroughs in the study of Greek word order from Opentext.org have essentially be nonexistent. The database asks the wrong questions for dealing with word order.

Now, with that said, its possible to use Opentext for studying word order. The fact that phrases/word groups are divided out is incredibly helpful, but we’re then left with a whole lot of sorting through the information and reanalyzing it using different criteria than what Opentext provides.

Logos Bible Software has come up with a creative way for celebrating the NCAA tournament with its own book tournament:

Logos March Madness

Every book gets at least 25% off minimum and the father it advances through the brackets, the better the deal – up to 75% off. Very creative, very nice.

I’m voting for Deissmann’s Light from the Ancient East, which along with his Bible Studies revolutionized the study of the Koine Greek. Everybody should own this book – and at $50, it could definitely use a 75% discount. Its rare and out of print, but incredibly important.

For the OT, I’ve put a vote in for Douglas Stuart’s Exodus commentary in the NAC. I’ve eyed this one for some time, but haven’t picked it up yet.

Theology: Hands down the Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology. There’s just no question here.

Finally, in the popular section, you can’t go wrong with The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer. People don’t read enough Schaeffer – so thoughtful on so many important theological and cultural issues.