Greek Searches

The following information is helpful for understanding how to perform Greek searches.

Working in the Search TabWorking in the Search Tab

Choosing Lexical or Inflected FormsChoosing Lexical or Inflected Forms

  • Words and phrases can be entered as either lexical or inflected forms.
  • To enter a lexical or inflected formClosed The word as it appears in the original text, which may be modified from its base dictionary form, do one of the following:
  • Click Search>Enter Lexical Forms or Search>Enter Inflected Forms.
  • Right-click in the Search Entry box, and choose Enter>Lexeme or Enter>Inflected.

    The Select Lexical Forms or Select Inflected Forms dialog box options appears.

  • If a word is not enclosed in quotation marks, it is treated as a lexical formClosed The canonical (dictionary) form of a word.
  • To find an inflected form in a tagged text, enclose it in plain quotation marks.
  • If a phrase includes inflected forms, either the entire phrase or each individual word must be enclosed in quotation marks.

    If quotation marks are not used, each word of the phrase is treated as a lexical form, and any phrases formed from these lexical forms are found when the search is performed.

Choosing Root FormsChoosing Root Forms

  • Words or phrases can be entered as a root form by doing one of the following:
  • Alt+Click Search>Enter Root Forms.
  • Right-click in the Search Entry box and choose Enter>Root.

    In either case, the Select Root Forms dialog box appears.

  • The word must be preceded by a plus sign. The plus sign is entered automatically when working via the Select Root Forms dialog box.

Tag ConstraintsTag Constraints

A tag constraint can be used to further limit the search; by itself it is also a valid expression. For example, the search argument [ADJECTIVE masculine singular] is an expression that could stand alone or be part of larger search criteria.

  • A word from a tagged text can be modified by tag constraints. The word and its tag constraints are a single expression and can be part of your larger search criteria.
  • Example: αγαπαω@[VERB aorist participle] is a single expression. The @ symbol is required to make multiple expressions apply to a single word.

Accents and Breathing MarksAccents and Breathing Marks

The accents, breathing marks, capital letters, and ending forms are ignored in the default Accordance search. Thus it makes no difference whether you search for Πέτρος or πετροσ (Peter).

When the equal sign (=) is added immediately before a word, Accordance searches for that exact lexical or inflected form. In Greek this includes the capitalization, ending forms, accents, and breathing marks.

Example: A search for the lexical form πατερ yields the following inflected forms (among others): Πάτερ, πάτερ, and πατήρ. However, a search for "=Πάτερ", finds only Πάτερ, and a search for "=πατήρ", finds only =πατήρ.

WildcardsWildcards

When searching tagged texts, you can use wild-cards in either lexical or inflected forms. A search for *ερχομ* finds all words derived from all lexical forms containing ερχομ, even though most of the words found do not include the letters ερχομ.

  • To use a wild-card to match inflected forms, enclose the argument containing the wild-card in quotation marks. Thus a search for * finds all lemmas, whereas "*" finds all inflected forms.
  • Wildcards are allowed with exact searches. In an exact search, the character wildcard (?) stands for any letter, accent, or breathing mark (the breathing mark-accent combination is treated as two characters).

    Example: To find all words from lemmas beginning with an accented α, search for =α?()?()* with a smooth and a rough breathing mark (press Alt+K and Shif+tAlt+K) inside the first parenthesis, and an acute and a grave accent (press / and \) inside the second parenthesis.

  • You can also search for a repeated character in a word. The question mark is followed by parentheses containing an equal sign and a numeral referring to the number of a prior question mark in the same word.

    Example: The entry α??(=1)* requires the third letter to be the same as the second letter (the first character is the wildcard). The search would find and ̉̉̉, but not .