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# Tyndale STEPBible Data development for machine analysis and computational linguistics

**Authors:** David Instone-Brewer · **Year:** 2019 · **Venue:** HIPHIL Novum 5/2, 102– (the page header misprints "vol 2") **Link:** [tidsskrift.dk/hiphilnovum/article/view/142739](https://tidsskrift.dk/hiphilnovum/article/view/142739) · **Licence:** copyrighted (free to read, no CC licence) — summary only

[**0** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W4391938566) openalex · 2026-10-18[HIPHIL Novum 5](https://openalex.org/S5406958382)[licence](https://tidsskrift.dk/hiphilnovum/about)

- [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v5i2.142739)
- [PDF](https://tidsskrift.dk/hiphilnovum/article/download/142739/186441)
- [DOI 10.7146/hn.v5i2.142739](https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v5i2.142739)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4391938566)

**Authors (1)**

1. David Instone-Brewer

Citations and author metrics from openalex (2026-10-18); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

A report on the data behind STEPBible.org (Tyndale House, Cambridge). Free Bible modules tag words inconsistently (Gen 2:20 tagged "Adam" in one, "man" in another), so interlinears fail to link. Tyndale extended Strong's numbers (Greek up to G9999 for LXX words; Hebrew split by BDB homonyms with letter suffixes, as OpenScriptures did: H1254a "create" vs H1254b "fatten") and refined the OSHB-tagged Westminster Leningrad Codex: corrected word divisions and ketiv pointing; tags for every prefix, suffix and particle (vav split into conjunctive and consecutive; he split into article, interrogative, directional, paragogic); a three-way jussive flag (formally distinct, formally an imperfect where a jussive would differ, or ambiguous); variants from the UBS Hebrew text project with their evidence; and fixed-width word ids that hold both Hebrew and English versification. An automatic aligner (Paratext + Berkeley Aligner) for a Swahili translation worked for most words but failed on idiomatic senses such as פָּנִים "face" in Gen 32:21. The new datasets were announced as CC BY-NC-ND.

## Ideas

- I1. The jussive flag: for every yiqtol in the Torah, mark whether the jussive form would differ (hollow, III-he, hiphil short forms) and whether it does, giving a "formal jussive / formal indicative / undecidable" value. It feeds volitive detection in `prag`.
- I2. Split ה־ and ו־ prefixes into their functions in FEATS/MISC (article / interrogative / directional / paragogic; conjunctive / consecutive), checked against MACULA's own values.
- I3. A sense split test for the dictionary: lemmas whose English alignment in JPS scatters over unrelated glosses (פָּנִים, בָּרָא) are candidates for homonym or idiom entries.
- I4. Keep a mapping between Hebrew and English versification in the verse ids (Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy have offsets) so JPS alignment never drifts.

## For Mova

I1 is a feature for `tools/macula` and a rule input for `tools/macula/src/prag.rs` (directives), described in [The verb](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/06-verb/) (volitives) and `07-weak-verbs.md`. I2 belongs to `13-mova-tools.md` §5 (FEATS and MISC). I3 is a check in `macula dict` (`10-lexicon.md`, polysemy). I4 is a check on `verses.tsv` and the JPS alignment. The STEPBible data is NC-ND: a reference to compare with, never copied.

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.7146/hn.v5i2.142739](https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v5i2.142739)

```
@inproceedings{instonebrewer2019tyndale,
  title = {{Tyndale STEPBible Data development for machine analysis and computational linguistics}},
  author = {Instone-Brewer, David},
  booktitle = {HIPHIL Novum 5},
  year = {2019},
  doi = {10.7146/hn.v5i2.142739},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.7146/hn.v5i2.142739}
}
```

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