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#11: Using TLG Workplace to Search Thesaurus Linguae Graecae

This guide is designed to provide a quick orientation to TLG Workplace, the search software that is used to access the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae.

What is Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG)?

Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) is a database of works by all known ancient Greek and Byzantine authors between Homer (8th century BC) and 600 AD, and a large number of texts between 600 AD and 1453. It numbers nearly 11,000 works from over 3,000 authors with a raw count of almost 80 million words of text. In addition, there are bibliographies of existing critical editions of their extant works. It includes all major Classics, Church Fathers, Philo, and Josephus. It is an invaluable tool for biblical and patristic research.

What TLG Workplace Can Do

  • Open individual books.
  • Save/Open search results.
  • Quick open of last used books.
  • Copy or print selections of texts (or search results).
  • Search within a book, a whole author, selected works of an author, or custom list of authors or works.
  • Search for works by date within a century range with summary by author and century.
  • Search Canon of Author and Works by date, classification, epithet, geographical location or women author. Has save to file and edit capability.
  • Allows recording of repeated searches of an author and an author's works for which a desktop icon can be created.
  • Scaleable fonts which can be changed to any point size for display and printing.
  • Links to an external lexicon, Liddell & Scott, Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon.
  • Save and retrieve search results.
  • Copy and paste search results into word processing software.
  • Print the search results.

Supports the TLG word index: type in the start of the words to be searched, or do a wild card search, either of which will produce a list of the works containing the word fragment. Open one of the works or do a search of the selected works.

Viewing

  1. On the desktop click on the "TLG32" icon.
  2. From the Files menu, select "Open TLG". This will produce a dialog box with all of the TLG authors.
  1. Author

    Select an author either by double clicking on an author's name, pressing the OK button or press . Or type several characters (not necessarily those at the start) of the author's name to scroll through the list.

    • To search again for the characters you typed, press F3 or Insert
    • To erase the last character of the string, press Backspace
    • To move around the dialog box, you can also use the cursor keys: Home, End, Page Up, or Page Down
  2. Work
    • Operates in the same way as selecting an author.
  3. Maximizing and Minimizing
    • To maximize a window to make as much of the book visible as possible, click on the upward pointing triangle in the Expand Box.
    • To temporarily minimize one book to an icon so that another can be read, click on the downward pointing triangle in the Reduce Box. This will close the book to an icon. To restore, double click on the icon which brings up the icon menu and from this select Restore.
  4. Closing
    • Use the Close button or use the menu box at the upper left hand corner of the window.
    • Short cut key for closing a text window is Alt F4.

Searching

  1. Search Syntax

    Use Boolean AND, OR and NOT when searching for a sequence of strings: AND is indicated by *, OR by | NOT by ! although it will display as a raised dot, only has meaning between two strings, and is good for limiting the number of matches but cannot begin or end a search

    • All searches can be typed in either upper or lower case letters
    • Diacritical marks are optional but if used must be matched
    • One mark` is used to match either an acute ("/") or grave accent ("\")
  2. Proximity Searching
  3. Word Boundary
    • To limit a search by using <, >, and <> Example: >lock indicates that the "l" must be the first character in the word and thus will not match "flock", for example. Lock< indicates that the "k" must be the last character in the word and thus will not match "locks", but will match "flock". >lock< will only match "lock" and no other word.
  4. Greek Search
    • Greek search matches the letters of a word and ignores all diacritical marks.
    • When prompted for the search string, it can be typed in upper or lower case
    • There is no difference between a normal sigma and a final sigma: either character can be searched. For the transliteration codes, see the list appended.
  5. Limiting Searches
    • TLG Workplace will match words with any prefix and any suffix.
    • This can lead to improper results, especially when searching for small words
    • Delimit small words by specifying the word boundaries.
    • The search string should contain only the most important words in the search.
  6. Searching List of Authors/Works
    • Allows you to search any combination of authors.
    • List of authors created with the "Make List of Authors" is a plain ASCII text file that can then be edited with any ASCII editor like Windows Notepad.
    • To navigate quickly through authors lists, type any portion of an author's name. Since several authors have similar names, pressing F3 will move to the next match. For example, typing "Philo" will move you to "Arethas Philol. Et Scr Eccl". Pressing F3 will move you to "Eustathius Philol. Et Scr. Eccl" and so forth.
  7. Searching Complete TLG
    • Use the Searching by Date Ranges.
    • Select all of the dates.
  8. Searching by Date Ranges
    • In many cases the date is uncertain or spans more than one century.
    • The date for any given work is the first possible century.For example, is a work is listed as 7-6 BC , it will be included as part of the 7th century BC.
    • Result window will display a summary by author and century.
    • Double clicking on an author will produce a list of all the matches for that author.
    • Double clicking on a reference brings up a window displaying the match.
    • Searching by this method is more convenient.
  9. Searching by Canon
    • This function finds and searches all works of a given type.
    • Select the categories you want and Workplace will find all the authors that match.
    • Save the resulting list of authors and works to a disk as plain text files and edit with Notepad.
    • Searching by this method, all of the possibilities are separate and the result is more accurate.
  10. Viewing Complete Text of Matches
    • Use the Tile feature (Window Tile) to make both the list and the results visible.
    • Move from one match to the next by pressing Ctrl + N or selecting List View Next Match from the list menu or from the right mouse button menu.
    • To move back in a list of matches choose List Move Back in List (or Ctrl+B).
  11. Recording and Repeating Searches
    • TLG Workplace can remember frequently searched authors or works.
    • When Record Author/Work to Search is selected, menu item will be checked.
    • When you repeat the Search | Whole Author or Search | Work(s) of Author function, you can name the search (e.g. NT Gospels) and repeat the search by pressing the F4 key.
    • You can also start with one of your recorded searches by adding the name of the search to the command line by selecting File | Properties and changing the command line in the form, e.g. C:\sms\tlg.exe search:ntgospels. Names are case insensitive, but the command must start with Search and the name of the search following without any space.

Saving

You can save the results either within Workplace or to a word processing program:

  • Workplace:
    • You can save the results to a file and retrieve them and access them later
    • To save go to the File menu
    • Select Save Search As
    • To retrieve the results back into TLG Workplace, go to File then Open Search.
  • Word Processor:
    • You can copy and paste your results into a word processor, but probably not in the one operation.
    • Instead choose the command, List | Write results to a word processor file (RTF) which saves the results in a file which can be read by a word processor program.
    • To remember frequently searched authors or works, select Record Author/Work to Search and the menu item will be checked. The next time you do Search | Whole Author or Search | Work(s) of Author, you will be able to name that search (e.g. Plato, or NTGospels) and repeat the search of that author/work by pressing the F4 key.
  • Concordances
    • You can concord a whole author, a work of an author, or just portion of a work.
    • Select Tools Concord and the concordance options dialogue box appears.
    • Select an author or work before proceeding.
    • Output is in Rich Text Format (RTF) which can be opened by any word processor program or in Word Pad. If output is large, it is better to use Split Output File.
    • If output from a concordance operation is large, use the "split output file" option. This places each letter of the alphabet in a separate file.
  • Word Index
    • The Word Index is a list of every inflected word form found in TLG. For each form, the index gives a total count and a list of the works in which that form occurs. Workplace uses the index so that you can get a quick look at how often and where a word is used.
    • Access the word index functions through the Index menu.
    • The first item in the Index menu does a double wild card match.
    • The second will only find the words that begin with the characters you provide.
    • The third finds words that end with the characters you provide.
  • Clipboard & Printing
    • Copy to Clipboard function copies the highlighted text to the clipboard. Most word processors can translate the formatted text and will be able to display the Greek texts; those without this ability will simply paste the text with transliteration.
    • Copy Section is used to copy large portions of text to the clipboard. When you use this function, you will be prompted for the starting and ending reference locators. Windows can only handle a limited portion of text so large requests may be truncated.

Tom Power, May 2002.