Graphical Search Engine

23 The Graphical Search Engine (GSE) Examples

GSE Examples

This Section contains a number of examples which illustrate various features of the GSE. You will find them all in your BibleWorks GSE directory. You will need to open a GSE window and load the examples.

Example 1: A Complex Boolean Query

This example can be found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "boolean.qf". It demonstrates how a complicated Boolean query can be built in the GSE. Here's the query:

This query finds two kinds of verses:

1. Verses with the words "man" or "*ites", and "anger", "wrath", "temper", or "fury".

2. Verses with "fear" and "Lord" or "God".

To do this search on the Command Line you would have to do it in two stages and use the Verse List Manager to merge the results. This is an example where you would not want to use the Command Line.

Example 2: Inclusion Lists

This example can be found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "inclusn.qf".

It illustrates the use of GSE inclusion/exclusion lists. It builds the same query from the last example, but uses inclusion lists.

Example 3: Multi-version Searches

This example can be found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "multiver.qf".

It finds all verses where the word "agap*" appears in the GNT and where the word "lov*" appears in the NKJ at the same verse reference. Note that since the GNT only covers the New Testament, no hits will be found in the Old Testament.

If you want to do multi-version searches with ordering, or if you want to do multi-version searching with results highlighting for each version, you must isolate the search parameters for each version in a separate sub-query. See Example 15 below for a example of how to do this.

Example 4: Punctuation and Same Words

This example can be found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "punctn.qf".

It finds all instances where the same word appears twice in a row, without a period between them. The punctuation elimination is specified in the ordering box's window. It also specifies that the repeated word is not "it", "in", or "that". Note that the punctuation group is defined under Query | Properties and that in the ordering box the punctuation flag is set to "none".

Example 5: Word Filters for Conditional Agreement

This example can be found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "wrdfiltr.qf".

It finds all verb participles in the GNM where if an article immediately precedes the participle, the article does not agree with the participle in case, gender, and number.

Example 6: Word filters Specifying a Range

This example can be found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "wrdrange.qf".

It finds all noun phrases in the GNT where an article precedes a noun and two to four adjectives are between them with no other words intervening. In addition, the article, noun, and adjectives must all agree in gender, case, and number.

Example 7: Crossing Verse Boundaries

This example can be found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "boundry.qf".

It finds the same phrases as the query in the last example, except that verse boundaries are crossed (see | Query | Properties | ).

Example 8: Complex Proximity Searches

This example can be found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the names "prximity.qf", "prximita.qf" and "prximitb.qf".

It finds all verse where the phrase "the faith" and ("our Lord" or "Jesus") appear within five verses of each other. Because proximity is processed in the Boolean Operations phase, we must split this query into three separate queries. If we were to combine all queries into one single query, the word ordering tests would not be run until after the verse proximity calculations (thus eliminating verses we want to keep). The final query is a proximity combination of two verse lists. The verse lists are calculated by "prximita" and "prximitb", shown above. The path names may differ on your system and you may need to edit the sample files depending on where you installed BibleWorks.

Example 9: A Complicated Query

This example can be found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "complic.qf".

This complicated query is based on a specification by Randy Leedy. The purpose of the search is to give a preliminary list of potential dative or accusative absolute constructions.

The query's specifications are too narrow to find all potential dative and accusative absolutes, but give a useful first cut in constructing such a list. The query finds all dative or accusative participles followed by an article and noun. The participle, article, and noun must agree in gender, case, and number and there may not be more than nine words between the participle and the noun. Furthermore, if an article immediately precedes the participle, it may not agree with the participle in gender, case, and number. Finally, if a preposition appears after the participle and before the intervening article, the article and preposition must not agree in case.

Example 10: The Granville Sharp Rule

This example can be found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "granshrp.qf".

The Granville Sharp rule describes a construction of the following form:

[article] [noun1] [kai] [noun2]

The nouns and article must agree in gender, case, and number. Several words may appear between these words. Any article between the kai and the second noun may not modify the second noun (i.e. does not agree in gender, case, and number with the second noun).

Please note that this is just an example. No claim is made that all verses matching the Granville Sharp rule are found by this query. It is just intended as an illustrative example. This example was provided courtesy of Rubén Gómez. It appears on page 184 of his book A Practical Guide to Bible Software (in Spanish).

Example 11: Word Not Existing in a Range, part 1

This example can be found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "RangeFilter1.qf".

The purpose of this query is to search for all phrases where a certain word does not appear anywhere between two words. In this example we’re searching for all phrases beginning with "lord" and ending with "hosts" where "god" does not appear anywhere between "lord" and "hosts". To filter out "god", we set the “god” word box to be a range filter and check the "Invert results (NOT)" checkbox. This is called a “range filter” because it filters all words within the given range (all words within 2 words after “lord” and all words within 2 words before “hosts”) and requires those words to match the constraints of the filter (they must NOT be “god” in this example). Remember that range filters (like agreement conditions) are not connected to merge boxes.

Example 12: Word Not Existing in a Range, part 2

This example can be found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "negate2.qf".

The purpose of this query is to search for all phrases where a certain word does not appear between two words. In this example we search for all phrases beginning with "the", followed by some word which is not "Lord*", followed by "is". Note that the previous example specifies that none of the words between "the" and "is" can be "Lord*", but this example specifies that only at least one of the words between "the" and "is" may not be "lord*". To filter out "lord*", we use a regular word box and click the "Invert results (NOT)" checkbox. Note that the word box for "lord*" is a regular word box and must be connected to the merge box.

Example 13: Extended Participle Construction

This example is found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "part1.qf".

It attempts to find instances where an article is separated from its substantival participle by a long string of words (at least seven). It eliminates any intervening substantives (noun, pronoun, adjective or participle) agreeing with the article and participle.

Example 14: Extended Participle Construction

This example is found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "part2.qf".

This example attempts to find instances where an article is separated from its substantival participle by a long string of words (at least seven). It eliminates any intervening substantives (noun, pronoun, adjective or participle) agreeing with the article and participle, but requires an intervening preposition followed by a substantive between the article and the participle. The intervening substantive agrees in gender, case, and number with the participle, and where the preposition and substantive agree in case.

Example 15: Using Subqueries and Eliminating Phrases

This example is found in the BibleWorks GSE directory under the name "subquer.qf".

Sometimes the results you need can only be accomplished using more than one query. For example, if you wanted to find all verses where the phrase "the man" occurs in the NAS and where the phrase "o@* anqrwpos@*" occurs in the BGM and where the phrase "the man" does not occur in the NRSV. One way to do this is to build three separate queries, one for each phrase, and then save the results of each query to a file (as in Lesson 6). We would then build a fourth query in which each of the three results files are combined (see Lesson 6 again).

Using subqueries, we can build a single query to do the work of the four queries described above. A subquery basically lets you combine multiple queries into a single GSE query. The sample query would look like this:

When the query is run, each subquery is run first, and the results of each subquery is fed into the query or subquery above it. A subquery is created by checking "Make subquery" in the topmost merge box of the subquery.