I am still in the middle of an exercise to explore the differences between the Bible in unpointed text and the Westminster Leningrad Codex.
E.g. Judges 1:1
א,א ויהי, אחרי מות יהושוע, וישאלו בני ישראל, ביהוה לאמור:or
וַיְהִ֗י אַחֲרֵי֙ מ֣וֹת יְהוֹשֻׁ֔עַ וַֽיִּשְׁאֲלוּ֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל בַּיהוָ֖ה לֵאמֹ֑רThis exercise may take a full year. I recently removed an error in the testing environment. I was failing to see misplaced a's in the SimHebrew result. Interesting that the error affected only about 50 words in the first 140,000. My test data has doubled since the last report(s). As I add new books to the data, my routine gets about 99% of the transformation from the pointed WLC to unpointed Hebrew in the first pass.
The 140,000 words of the test data represent 3304 distinct stems, 82% of all the stems in the Biblical corpus.The data contains 25,000 of the roughly 40,000 distinct word forms used in the canon. There are 50 unresolvable words. These are words in the pointed text exactly identical to each other but which transform to differing forms. It seems to me that they are errors. But I may be wrong. There may be a contextual clue that my approach misses. I could transform them, but at present I am simply ignoring them. It may be that I just can't see the rule at this time. There are plenty of spelling idiosyncrasies in the WLC and I allow them to be respelled.
The first few times I have attempted to explain the process have revealed to me how prone to complexity my thought process is. I want to get to a simpler explainable process. As long as it is this complex, I feel that I have not understood. The patterns bear little resemblance to the traditional paradigms that are taught in elementary Hebrew classes. When you have all the gadgets of a language to deal with at once, the amo, amas, amat approach does not seem to help much. The tension lies in the method of abstraction.
If I work by vowel, I get a long string of traditional programming. This is what I am doing. What if I could work by stem? There are a few places where I do more than one operation related to a single stem, but there are too many stems (4087) to make the process explainable. Would an abstraction work by sets of stems as Lambdin does in his grammar? That's the question - could such an approach be developed and would it show the flower of the language?
I don't know yet.
What happens if we attempt to trace the rules followed by stem?
So at random, here is the first stem, ail. What an interesting choice (see the glosses below). This is a great word to start with. It is a word with multiple uses: for an animal (hart and ram), for strength, as a portion of a building, a portico, as the name of a location.
There are 3 rules for ail in my logic at the moment:
- i followed by qamats may turn into a double-i - so far this is only for words with prefix c and suffix vt or none, i.e. of the form c/!\vt, c/!\. Here ! stands for whatever is left of the stem in the word form, and /\ show the prefix and suffix.
- the first consonant a with patah followed by i will become double-i for words of the form /!\t, b/!\vt, c/!\, and c/!\vt.
- tsere becomes i for several word forms /!\iv, /!\ihmh /!\, v/!\miv v/!\iv h/!\im.
- otherwise a word form for ail just transforms letter by letter.
Table of the transform of the stem ail from WLC into unpointed left to
right SimHebrew Ordered by WLC Word |
|||||||
Reference |
word form |
morph |
sim word |
WLC
word |
Domain |
translation |
|
Psalms 88:5(8) |
ail |
ail |
-aiil |
־אֱיָל |
STRENGTH |
איל potency |
|
Ezekiel 40:14(3) |
ailim |
ail\im |
-ailim |
־אֵילִים |
CITY |
אילים porticoes |
|
2 Kings 16:6(8) |
ailt |
ail\t |
-ailt |
־אֵילַת |
LOCATION |
אילת Eilat |
|
2 Kings 14:22(4) |
ailt |
ail\t |
-ailt |
־אֵילַת |
LOCATION |
אילת Eilat |
|
Ezekiel 40:31(7) |
ailiv |
ail\iv |
-ailiv |
־אֵילָיו |
CITY |
איליו its portico |
|
Ezekiel 40:37(6) |
ailiv |
ail\iv |
-ailiv |
־אֵילָיו |
CITY |
איליו its porticoes |
|
Ezekiel 40:26(13) |
ailiv |
ail\iv |
-ailiv |
־אֵילָיו |
CITY |
איליו its porticoes |
|
2 Chronicles 8:17(7) |
ailvt |
ail\vt |
-ailvt |
־אֵילוֹת |
LOCATION |
אילות Hart |
|
2 Chronicles 26:2(4) |
ailvt |
ail\vt |
-ailvt |
־אֵילוֹת |
LOCATION |
אילות Hart |
|
Ezekiel 40:14(7) |
ail |
ail |
-ail |
־אֵיל |
CITY |
איל the portico
of |
|
Ezekiel 40:34(6) |
aliv |
al\iv |
-ailiv |
־אֵלָיו |
CITY |
אליו its porticoes |
|
Ezekiel 40:16(18) |
ail |
ail |
-ail |
־אַיִל |
CITY |
איל a portico |
|
Psalms 22:1(3) |
ailt |
ail\t |
-aiilt |
־אַיֶּלֶת |
ANIMAL |
אילת the hart of |
|
Ezekiel 40:49(15) |
hailim |
h/ail\im |
-hailim |
־הָאֵילִים |
CITY |
האילים the porticoes |
|
Psalms 22:20(5) |
ailvti |
ail\vti |
aiilvti |
אֱיָלוּתִי |
ANIMAL |
אילותי my hart |
|
Psalms 66:15(7) |
ailim |
ail\im |
ailim |
אֵילִים |
ANIMAL |
אילים rams |
|
Micah 6:7(4) |
ailim |
ail\im |
ailim |
אֵילִים |
ANIMAL |
אילים rams |
|
1 Chronicles 15:26(14) |
ailim |
ail\im |
ailim |
אֵילִים |
ANIMAL |
אילים rams |
|
2 Kings 3:4(14) |
ailim |
ail\im |
ailim |
אֵילִים |
ANIMAL |
אילים rams |
|
Job 42:8(7) |
ailim |
ail\im |
ailim |
אֵילִים |
ANIMAL |
אילים rams |
|
1 Chronicles 29:21(12) |
ailim |
ail\im |
ailim |
אֵילִים |
ANIMAL |
אילים rams |
|
2 Chronicles 29:32(9) |
ailim |
ail\im |
ailim |
אֵילִים |
ANIMAL |
אילים rams |
|
2 Chronicles 17:11(13) |
ailim |
ail\im |
ailim |
אֵילִים |
ANIMAL |
אילים rams |
|
2 Kings 24:15(14) |
aili |
ail\i |
aili |
אֵילֵי |
STRENGTH |
אילי the
potentates of |
|
2 Kings 16:6(16) |
ailt |
ail\t |
ailt |
אֵילַת |
LOCATION |
אילת Eilat |
|
Ezekiel 40:24(9) |
ailiv |
ail\iv |
ailiv |
אֵילָיו |
CITY |
איליו portico |
|
Ezekiel 40:16(6) |
alihmh |
al\ihmh |
ailihmh |
אֵלֵיהֵמָה |
CITY |
אליהמה their
porticoes |
|
Ezekiel 40:36(2) |
aliv |
al\iv |
ailiv |
אֵלָיו |
CITY |
אליו its porticoes |
|
Ezekiel 40:48(6) |
al |
al |
ail |
אֵל |
CITY |
אל a portico of |
|
Proverbs 5:19(1) |
ailt |
ail\t |
aiilt |
אַיֶּלֶת |
ANIMAL |
אילת the hart of |
|
Job 39:1(7) |
ailvt |
ail\vt |
aiilvt |
אַיָּלוֹת |
ANIMAL |
אילות the hart |
|
Psalms 29:9(4) |
ailvt |
ail\vt |
aiilvt |
אַיָּלוֹת |
ANIMAL |
אילות hart |
|
Ezekiel 40:38(3) |
bailim |
b/ail\im |
bailim |
בְּאֵילִים |
CITY |
באילים were in the
porticoes of |
|
Song 3:5(7) |
bailvt |
b/ail\vt |
baiilvt |
בְּאַיְלוֹת |
ANIMAL |
באילות by the hart
of |
|
Song 2:7(7) |
bailvt |
b/ail\vt |
baiilvt |
בְּאַיְלוֹת |
ANIMAL |
באילות by the hart
of |
|
2 Chronicles 29:22(10) |
halim |
h/al\im |
hailim |
הָאֵלִים |
ANIMAL |
האלים the rams |
|
1 Kings 6:31(8) |
hail |
h/ail |
hail |
הָאַיִל |
CITY |
האיל the portico |
|
Song 2:17(13) |
hailim |
h/ail\im |
haiilim |
הָאַיָּלִים |
ANIMAL |
האילים of the hart |
|
Song 8:14(8) |
hailim |
h/ail\im |
haiilim |
הָאַיָּלִים |
ANIMAL |
האילים the hart |
|
Song 2:9(6) |
hailim |
h/ail\im |
haiilim |
הָאַיָּלִים |
ANIMAL |
האילים the hart |
|
2 Chronicles 29:21(4) |
vailim |
v/ail\im |
vailim |
וְאֵילִים |
ANIMAL |
ואילים and rams |
|
2 Chronicles 13:9(22) |
vailm |
v/ail\m |
vailim |
וְאֵילִם |
ANIMAL |
ואילם and rams |
|
Ezekiel 40:22(14) |
vailmv |
v/ail\mv |
vailmiv |
וְאֵילַמָּיו |
CITY |
ואילמו and its
portico |
|
Ezekiel 40:9(7) |
vailiv |
v/ail\iv |
vailiv |
וְאֵילָיו |
CITY |
ואיליו and its
porticoes |
|
Ezekiel 40:29(2) |
vailiv |
v/ail\iv |
vailiv |
וְאֵילָיו |
CITY |
ואיליו and its
porticoes |
|
Ezekiel 40:21(6) |
vailiv |
v/ail\iv |
vailiv |
וְאֵילָיו |
CITY |
ואיליו and its
porticoes |
|
Ezekiel 40:37(1) |
vailiv |
v/ail\iv |
vailiv |
וְאֵילָיו |
CITY |
ואיליו and its
porticoes |
|
Ezekiel 40:22(2) |
valmiv |
v/al\miv |
vailmiv |
וְאֵלַמָּיו |
CITY |
ואלמיו and its
porticoes |
|
Ezekiel 40:33(2) |
valiv |
v/al\iv |
vailiv |
וְאֵלָיו |
CITY |
ואליו its porticoes |
|
Psalms 114:6(3) |
cailim |
c/ail\im |
cailim |
כְאֵילִים |
ANIMAL |
כאילים like rams |
|
Psalms 114:4(3) |
cailim |
c/ail\im |
cailim |
כְאֵילִים |
ANIMAL |
כאילים like rams |
|
Jeremiah 51:40(4) |
cailim |
c/ail\im |
cailim |
כְּאֵילִים |
ANIMAL |
כאילים like rams |
|
Lamentations 1:6(8) |
cailim |
c/ail\im |
caiilim |
כְּאַיָּלִים |
ANIMAL |
כאילים like hart |
|
Psalms 42:2(1) |
cail |
c/ail |
caiil |
כְּאַיָּל |
ANIMAL |
כאיל as a hart |
|
Habakkuk 3:19(6) |
cailvt |
c/ail\vt |
caiilvt |
כָּאַיָּלוֹת |
ANIMAL |
כאילות as the hart |
|
Psalms 18:34(3) |
cailvt |
c/ail\vt |
caiilvt |
כָּאַיָּלוֹת |
ANIMAL |
כאילות the hart |
|
Ezekiel 40:10(14) |
lailm |
l/ail\m |
lailim |
לָאֵילִם |
CITY |
לאילם for the
porticoes |
|
2 Kings 16:6(13) |
mailvt |
m/ail\vt |
mailvt |
מֵאֵילוֹת |
LOCATION |
מאילות from Eilat |
|
1 Kings 5:3(10) |
mail |
m/ail |
maiil |
מֵאַיָּל |
ANIMAL |
מאיל hart |
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