Astl programming language and tools for the Tanach
This is an implementation of the Astl programming language for Tanach texts in the form as distributed by tanach.us. Astl is an easy to learn scripting language that is specialized on attributed abstract syntax trees. (You find a documentation in the subdirectory astl/refman.)
Included are astl-tanach and astl-tropes. astl-tanach works directly on the accented plain texts from tanach.us. Unfortunately, it is too hard to perform a full grammatical analysis on that level. Instead a tool is provided that generates an intermediate language that makes it easier to fully analyse the grammar.
This is still on-going work in an experimental stage.
If you want to clone it, you should do this recursively:
git clone --recursive https://github.com/afborchert/astl-tanach.git
To build it, you need bison 3.x, a recent g++ with C++14 support, GMP, pcre2, and boost libraries:
(cd astl/astl && make)
(cd tanach/src && make)
(cd tropes/src && make)
Firstly, you will need to download the books of the Tanach you are interested in. Take for example the Genesis:
wget -O genesis.txt 'http://www.tanach.us/TextServer?Genesis*&content=Accents'
You will find the links for other books by going to the index page at http://www.tanach.us/Tanach.xml, chosing one of the books, and selecting the link labeled Accents in the Text row from the table with the download links.
Any astl-tanach script takes always as first argument such a text,
converts it into an abstract syntax tree (AST, hence the name Astl),
and executes the script. To get an idea how the syntax tree generated
by astl-tanach looks like it helps to use the tree.ast utility
in the subdirectory tanach/tools:
tree.ast genesis.txt >genesis.tree
Here is an excerpt of the resulting genesis.tree, showing the
header and the first verse:
("book"
("comments"
("comment"
xxxx Unicode/XML Westminster Leningrad Codex [4.20]
)
("comment"
xxxx
)
("comment"
xxxx Produced by the J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research
)
("comment"
xxxx 2960 Church Road / Glenside, PA 19038-2000 / USA
)
("comment"
xxxx
)
("comment"
xxxx Editor: Stephen K. Salisbury <[email protected]>
)
("comment"
xxxx Senior Editor: Kirk E. Lowery <[email protected]>
)
("comment"
xxxx
)
("comment"
xxxx Transcriber: Christopher V. Kimball, West Redding, CT USA
)
("comment"
xxxx Transcribed by WLC2XML of 17 Jan 2016 at 10 May 2016 @ 07:08.30. Build number: 25.0.
)
("comment"
xxxx Transformed to text by XML2Text.xsl.xml of 2 Jun 2011 at 2016.06.11-16.46, Build number: 25.0.
)
("comment"
xxxx Layout: Full; Content: Accents.
)
("comment"
xxxx
)
("comment"
xxxx Genesis (50 chapters, 1533 verses).
)
("comment"
xxxx
)
("comment"
xxxx Chapter 1 (31 verses)
)
("comment"
xxxx
)
)
("verse"
("verse_number"
1
1
)
("word_sequence_with_sof_pasuq"
("word_sequence"
("word"
("word_segment"
("letter"
("bet")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("degesh_or_mapiq")
)
("vocal_point"
("sheva")
)
)
)
("letter"
("resh")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("tsere")
)
)
)
("letter"
("alef")
)
("letter"
("shin")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("shin_dot")
)
("vocal_point"
("hiriq")
)
("trope"
("tipeha")
)
)
)
("letter"
("yod")
)
("letter"
("tav")
)
)
)
("word"
("word_segment"
("letter"
("bet")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("degesh_or_mapiq")
)
("vocal_point"
("qamats")
)
)
)
("letter"
("resh")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("qamats")
)
("trope"
("munah")
)
)
)
("letter"
("alef")
)
)
)
("word"
("word_segment"
("letter"
("alef")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("hataf_segol")
)
)
)
("letter"
("lamed")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("holam")
)
)
)
("letter"
("he")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("hiriq")
)
("trope"
("etnahta")
)
)
)
("letter"
("yod")
)
("letter"
("final_mem")
)
)
)
("word"
("word_segment"
("letter"
("alef")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("tsere")
)
("trope"
("merkha")
)
)
)
("letter"
("tav")
)
)
)
("word"
("word_segment"
("letter"
("he")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("patah")
)
)
)
("letter"
("shin")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("shin_dot")
)
("vocal_point"
("degesh_or_mapiq")
)
("vocal_point"
("qamats")
)
)
)
("letter"
("mem")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("patah")
)
("trope"
("tipeha")
)
)
)
("letter"
("yod")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("hiriq")
)
)
)
("letter"
("final_mem")
)
)
)
("word"
("word_segment"
("letter"
("vav")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("sheva")
)
)
)
("letter"
("alef")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("tsere")
)
("trope"
("merkha")
)
)
)
("letter"
("tav")
)
)
)
("word"
("word_segment"
("letter"
("he")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("qamats")
)
)
)
("letter"
("alef")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("qamats")
)
("vocal_point"
("meteg")
)
)
)
("letter"
("resh")
("accent_sequence"
("vocal_point"
("point_segol")
)
)
)
("letter"
("final_tsadi")
)
)
)
)
("sof_pasuq")
)
)
/* ... */
)
This representation permits simple analysis like finding verses with particular tropes. Following examples finds all verses with a shalshelet in a particular text:
attribution rules {
("shalshelet") in ("verse" ("verse_number" chapter verse) sequence) -> {
println(chapter, ":", verse, );
}
}
If you run this example for the Genesis text, you will get the following result:
$ find_shalshelet.ast genesis.txt
19:16
24:12
39:8
$
If you want to extract the text of the verses as well, you've to extend the script:
import text;
attribution rules {
("shalshelet") in
("verse" ("verse_number" chapter verse) sequence) as v -> post {
gen_text(v);
println(chapter, ":", verse, " ", v.text);
}
}
The function gen_text comes from the imported text module which
reconstructs the text string v.text from the subtree. This delivers
the following result:
$ find_shalshelet.ast genesis.txt
19:16 וַֽיִּתְמַהְמָ֓הּ׀וַיַּחֲזִ֨קוּהָאֲנָשִׁ֜יםבְּיָד֣וֹוּבְיַד־אִשְׁתּ֗וֹוּבְיַד֙שְׁתֵּ֣יבְנֹתָ֔יובְּחֶמְלַ֥תיְהוָ֖העָלָ֑יווַיֹּצִאֻ֥הוּוַיַּנִּחֻ֖הוּמִח֥וּץלָעִֽיר׃
24:12 וַיֹּאמַ֓ר׀יְהוָ֗האֱלֹהֵי֙אֲדֹנִ֣יאַבְרָהָ֔םהַקְרֵה־נָ֥אלְפָנַ֖יהַיּ֑וֹםוַעֲשֵׂה־חֶ֕סֶדעִ֖םאֲדֹנִ֥יאַבְרָהָֽם׃
39:8 וַיְמָאֵ֓ן׀וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙אֶל־אֵ֣שֶׁתאֲדֹנָ֔יוהֵ֣ןאֲדֹנִ֔ילֹא־יָדַ֥עאִתִּ֖ימַה־בַּבָּ֑יִתוְכֹ֥לאֲשֶׁר־יֶשׁ־ל֖וֹנָתַ֥ןבְּיָדִֽי׃
$
If you are interested in analysing the grammatical structure of a text,
you need to generate an intermediate representation which makes it more
easily to parse. This intermediate file is generated by the
gen_tropes.ast tool in the subdirectory tanach/tools:
gen_tropes.ast genesis.txt >genesis.tropes
This takes some time as the Genesis is a long text with 1533 verses.
The result in genesis.tropes is a human-readable file in an
intermediate format which can be processed using the astl_tropes
parser. In the subdirectory tropes/tool you will find gen_wikitab.ast
that is able to construct a Mediawiki table for an individual verse.
Select, for example, Genesis 1:1 from genesis.tropes generated above,
and store it into genesis-1:1.tropes:
verse 1:1 {
tipeha word {
"בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית"
}
etnahta clause munah word {
"בָּרָ֣א"
}
etnahta word {
"אֱלֹהִ֑ים"
}
tipeha clause merkha word {
"אֵ֥ת"
}
tipeha word {
"הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם"
}
siluq clause merkha word {
"וְאֵ֥ת"
}
siluq word {
"הָאָֽרֶץ"
}
sof_pasuq "׃"
}
This file can now be parsed by scripts using the
astl-tropes interpreter. Again, it helps to
have a look at the resulting syntax tree. Here is
the syntax tree generated for the first verse of the
Genesis:
$ tree.ast genesis-1:1.tropes
("verse"
1
1
("sof_pasuq_segment"
("etnahta_segment"
("tipeha_clause"
("tipeha_word"
("text"
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית
)
)
)
("etnahta_clause"
("conjunctive_words"
("munah_word"
("text"
בָּרָ֣א
)
)
)
("etnahta_word"
("text"
אֱלֹהִ֑ים
)
)
)
)
("siluq_segment"
("tipeha_clause"
("conjunctive_words"
("merkha_word"
("text"
אֵ֥ת
)
)
)
("tipeha_word"
("text"
הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם
)
)
)
("siluq_clause"
("conjunctive_words"
("merkha_word"
("text"
וְאֵ֥ת
)
)
)
("siluq_word"
("text"
הָאָֽרֶץ
)
)
)
)
)
("sof_pasuq"
׃
)
)
$
These syntax trees follow widely (James D. Price 1996, pp. 13–16) and (Joshua R. Jacobson, Chapter 2).
Using astl-tropes scripts it is possible to transform
such a syntax tree into a more readable representation.
One tool named gen_wikitab.ast is provided which generates
a table in MediaWiki syntax for it.
$ gen_wikitab.ast genesis-1:1.tropes >genesis-1:1.wiki
This is the contents of genesis-1:1.wiki:
{| class="wikitable" style="background:#FFFFFF; font-size:85%; text-align:center;"
|- bgcolor="#E0E0E0"
| colspan="8"| 1,1
|-
|'''Gesamter Vers'''
| colspan="7"|
<div dir="rtl">בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ</div>
|-
|'''1. Ebene'''
|colspan="4"|
<div dir="rtl">אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ</div><br />Siluk-Segment
|colspan="3"|
<div dir="rtl">בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים</div><br />Etnachta-Segment
|-
|'''Worte'''
|<div dir="rtl">הָאָֽרֶץ</div><br />Siluk
|<div dir="rtl">וְאֵ֥ת</div><br />Mercha
|<div dir="rtl">הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם</div><br />Tifcha
|<div dir="rtl">אֵ֥ת</div><br />Mercha
|<div dir="rtl">אֱלֹהִ֑ים</div><br />Etnachta
|<div dir="rtl">בָּרָ֣א</div><br />Munach
|<div dir="rtl">בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית</div><br />Tifcha
|}
Currently, German labels are used. But it is simple to adapt this
to another language. Just copy tropes/lib/de_names.ast to
another name, adapt it to your language and import it instead
of de_names in gen_wikitab.ast.
The work would have been impossible without the following works which helped me to plunge into the fascinating world of the grammatical structure of the Tanach texts:
- Joshua R. Jacobson: Chanting the Hebrew Bible. The Art of Cantillation. The Jewish Publication Society, Philadelpha 2002, ISBN 0-827-0693-1
- James D. Price: The Syntax of Masoretic Accents in the Hebrew Bible. Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity, Volume 27. The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, New York, 1990. ISBN 0-88946-510-X.
- James D. Price: Concordance of the Hebrew Accents used in the Pentateuch. In: Concordance of the Hebrew Accents in the Hebrew Bible. Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity, Volume 34A. The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, New York, 1996. ISBN 0-7334-2395-8.
- Israel Yeivin: Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah. Scholar Press, Chico, California, 1980, ISBN 0-89130-373-1.
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