Character Representation for Search Terms

The term(s) to be searched in selected documents are entered into the Search in Texts For: box on the search-form. Word searches in PhiloLogic are by default case insensitive, so that a search finds both lower and upper case representations of words. The user must, however, take into account diacritics when searching databases that have accented characters. PhiloLogic's wildcard characters may also be employed to match many forms. The simplest search in PhiloLogic is a single term search without wildcards. If searching for a term such as "tradition" in a database, simply type the word tradition into the Search in Text(s) For: box and press the SEARCH button.

Wildcard Characters and Boolean Operators:

Wildcard Characters

. (period):

matches any single character (e.g., fais.it will retrieve faisait and faisoit).

.* (period asterisk "dot-star"):

matches any string of characters, anchoring the match at the beginning of a word (e.g., cigar.* will match cigar, cigars, cigarette, etc.), anchoring the match at the end of a word (e.g., .*prendre will retrieve apprendre, comprendre, entreprendre, etc.), or in the middle (e.g., co.*aisance matches complaisance and connaissance).

.? (period question mark):

matches the characters entered or the characters entered plus one more character in place of the question mark (e.g., amo.?r matches both amor and amour and chat.? matches chat and chats, but not chatiment, Chateaubriand, etc.).

[a-z] (brackets):

matches a single character found in the specified range (e.g., [m-z]ot will match mot, pot, rot, and sot) or any letters within the brackets (e.g., civili[zs]e will match both civilize and civilise).

E (capital letter):

matches all accented and non-accented forms (e.g., to search naïveté regardless of accents type naIvetE).

Note: If you are using wildcard characters and would like to see a full list of the words matching your search-term, then run your search as a "Frequency by Title" search. The results page of a "Frequency by Title" search lists all the terms found in a database that match your search-term.

Boolean Operators

| (vertical bar):

serves as the OR operator (e.g., liberté|égalité retrieves instances of either).

Space:

serves as the AND operator in sentence and paragraph Proximity Searching (e.g., église état retrieve all cases where church and state appear in the same specified context; this is not the case in phrase searching).

! (exclamation point)

serves as the NOT operator (e.g., !esprit saint retrieves occurrences of saint, but not esprit saint, whereas Jules !CEsar finds occurrences of Jules without Cesar or César and christ.* BUTNOT christ[im].* finds Christ but not christian). In any case, uppercase NOT will automatically be converted to the exclamation point during searching.

These expressions can be combined for more sophisticated searches; for example, searching jolie|belle femme|fille finds any of the two adjectives together with the nouns femm or fille.

Accents and Special Characters:

capital letter = any form of the letter

(e. g., E matches é ê è ë and e (no accent) and É Ê È Ë and E (no accent).

grave = (\) back slash

(e.g., a\ matches à).

acute = (/) forward slash

(e.g., e/ matches é).

circumflex = (^) caret

(e.g., e^ matches ê).

cedilla = (,) comma

(e.g., c, matches ç).

ümlaut/dieresis = (") double quote

(e.g., u" matches ü).

tilde = (~) tilde

(e.g., n~ matches ñ).

Special Characters and Symbols

ae-ligature (æ) = ae

the ligature is resolved into two letters. (e.g., to search æther type in aether).

oe-ligature (œ) = oe

the ligature is resolved into two letters. (e.g., to search œconomy type in oeconomy).

ampersand (&)

is not a searchable character. Avoid Phrase Searches where an ampersand could be used as a conjunction.