Example: Greek Construct Search

Goal: To search for any form of the Greek verb baptize, which is followed within 5 words by a preposition and noun, with no intervening verb.

Setup: A grammatically tagged GNT such as the GNT-T or GNT28-T is required for this search.


  1. Open a Search tabClosed The core tab used to search Bible texts, it consists of a search entry area and a search results area with the GNT-T as the search text.
  2. Set the Search tab to search for Words and click inside the Search Entry box. If there is a search argument in the box, delete it.
  3. On the File menu, choose New Tab>Construct>Greek. A Greek Construct tab opens in a new zone, and the Search Entry box has a new entry, as shown below:

  4. In the Greek Construct tab, proceed as follows:
  5. Drag a LEX item into the first column. The Select Lexical Forms dialog box appears.
  6. In the Go to box of the Select Lexical Forms dialog box, enter the letters bap, verify that Use exact lexemeClosed A meaningful linguistic unit that is an item in the vocabulary of a language is selected, and click OK.
  7. Drag a PREP. (Preposition) item into the second column. When the Select tag details for Preposition dialog box appears, click OK without defining any details.
  8. Drag a NOUN item in the third column. When the Define tag details for NOUN dialog box appears, click OK without defining any details.
  9. Drag a WITHIN item above the first two columns. A dialog box appears; the first box has an initial value of "1" but can be changed; the other box is empty.

    Hint

    Press Shift while adding a WITHIN element to automatically add WITHIN 1 between all columns that contain items, thereby creating a phrase. This bypasses opening the dialog box asking for you to enter the within parameters.

  10. Enter 5 in the first box and click OK.
  11. Move the arc of the WITHIN item by dragging its handle so that it links the outer columns. This allows up to 3 additional intervening words.
  12. Drag an INTER item above the first two columns.
  13. Drag a VERB item over the INTER item. The Select tag details for VERB dialog box appears. This does not need to be defined; click OK.
  14. Drag a NOT item over the top of the INTER item. This prevents a VERB from appearing between the first two elements.
  15. Press Enter in the Search Entry box of the Search tab or the Greek Construct tab. The hits for "baptizo" followed by a preposition and noun are displayed in the Search tab.

    An example of the construct and search results is shown below: