Saturday, January 10, 2009

Grammar and information

If the psalms are a story, grammar is TMI, as they say. For a mere 5 verses (53 words) in psalms 1 and 2 I have 954 possible entries in my table. True that the first two days were occupied with designing the tables and setting filters for data entry and reporting, but that is still probably 2 minutes per word - eighty-six 7.5 hour days!

Even with modern technology and default values, it will take 4 full-time months of work to annotate such a body of literature 19,551 words by hand! (And you would end up with about 352000 answers. I am sure there are some interesting patterns there but I may not pursue this with too much alacrity. Mind you, some 75% of the answers are similar - so if one could default the values more efficiently - like observe enclitics and decide algorithmically what the default form and part of speech is...)

Here's a bit a Psalm 2 - not exactly complete and probably with a few errors and omissions.

Part of Speech Person Number Gender Sfx Root Pfx Form Aspect Tense
Interrogative



םה לָ


Verb 3 Plural
וּ רגשׁ
Qal Indeterminate Perfect
Noun
Plural
ים גו
Absolute

Noun
Plural
ים לאם
Absolute

Verb 3 Plural Non-specific וּ הג י Qal Incomplete Imperfect
Adverb



ריק



Verb 3 Plural Non-specific וּ יצב יִתְ Hithpael Completed Imperfect
Noun
Plural Male י מלך
Construct

Noun
Singular

ארץ
Absolute

Verb 3 Plural Non-specific ים רזן וְ Qal
Participle Active
Verb 3 Plural Non-specific וּ יסד נוֹ Hiphil Incomplete Imperfect
Adjective



יחד



Preposition



על



Noun



יי
Absolute

Preposition



על וְ


Noun
Singular
וֹ משיח
Absolute

Verb 1 Plural
ה נתק נְ Piel Incomplete Imperfect
Conjunction



את
Qal

Noun
Plural
ֹותֵימֹו מוסר
Absolute

Verb 1 Plural
ה שׁלך וְנַ Hiphil Incomplete Imperfect
Preposition 1 Plural
וּ ממ



Noun 3 Plural
ימֹו עבת
Absolute

Verb 3 Singular Masculine
ישׁב
Qal Continuous Participle Active
Noun
Plural

שמים בּ Absolute

Verb 3 Singular

שׁחק יִ Qal
Imperfect
Noun
Singular

יי



Verb 3 Singular

לעג יִ Qal
Imperfect
Preposition


מֹו ל


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