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Case Frames choices

Francis

I find that as I look through the case frames section of the BWS I am often puzzled by how verses are categorized. Perhaps it is because I don't understand it well yet. Here is an example:

First of all, I am not sure why, in this instance, we are in the Experiencer-Stimulus category rather than the Agent-Patient in which most instances, that are very alike (this BWS was run on Pauline Epistles) are.

Then why is not God the Stimulus so that the verse would be categorized as Stm-[Exp] instead (the Experiencer being Any Believer)?

Here is another example:

Why is "Content" bracketed? Is not "You came from God" the explicit content of what was believed?

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Dave Hooton

First of all, I am not sure why, in this instance, we are in the Experiencer-Stimulus category rather than the Agent-Patient in which most instances, that are very alike

If you look at Agt - [Pat] which is for the same verse, "who justifies" is the Agent vs. "God" who is the Experiencer. I might be able to reconcile these views but I've already processed the intent/meaning of the verb so this categorisation is a mental exercise I can (have) dispensed with. My 'favourite" is Eph 5:25 on ἀγαπάω "love".

Why is "Content" bracketed? Is not "You came from God" the explicit content of what was believed?

good question

Fr Devin Roza

First of all, I am not sure why, in this instance, we are in the Experiencer-Stimulus category rather than the Agent-Patient in which most instances, that are very alike (this BWS was run on Pauline Epistles) are.

I think the current classification is correct. In this context, "justify" doesn't much mean theological justification of the sinner. Rather it is more "justification" in a court room context, where someone brings a charge forward and the judge says, "sorry, that argument doesn't work." That is a mental operation, which is the "Experiencer" case. The sinner isn't modified (as he is normally with this verb) but the argument is thrown out of court!

Obviously, this implies an interpretation of the passage, but I think the interpretation is at least defensible.

Here is another example:

Why is "Content" bracketed? Is not "You came from God" the explicit content of what was believed?

I also think here the Logos info is correct. The reason is that the "content" is expressed in a subordinate clause. If you look through the explanation of Case Frames (actually documented from the get go!), it explains that if the argument is expressly explained, but is in a different clause, it will be in brackets. The Case Frames are limited to within the clause.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/696910#Comment_696910

In this context, "justify" doesn't much mean theological justification of the sinner. Rather it is more "justification" in a court room context, where someone brings a charge forward and the judge says, "sorry, that argument doesn't work." That is a mental operation, which is the "Experiencer" case. The sinner isn't modified (as he is normally with this verb) but the argument is thrown out of court!

Interesting suggestion, Devin. I am not sure that this kind of distinction really is all that clearly justifiable theologically and that such a judgment should be the basis for semantic distinction as well (though to be sure, there are word usages where it may be the case). Admittedly, the emphasis is a bit different in that justification in the other instances is from God's own charges (or the Law) whereas here it is from other parties. But the affirmation, "it is God who justifies" returns the act of justification to God Himself and surely issues in the believer being "righted". I would think, therefore, that usage is consistent and should translate into a consistent categorization as either agent-patient or experiencer-stimulus as well.

If you look through the explanation of Case Frames (actually documented from the get go!), it explains that if the argument is expressly explained, but is in a different clause, it will be in brackets. The Case Frames are limited to within the clause.

Thank you for pointing that out, Devin. It's also useful to know there is actually an explanatory introduction to the glossary. I ever only used it to look up entries and so did not realize that. I will read it and hopefully attain to a higher level of enlightenment...

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/696915#Comment_696915

Interesting suggestion, Devin. I am not sure that this kind of distinction really is all that clearly justifiable theologically and that such a judgment should be the basis for semantic distinction as well (though to be sure, there are word usages where it may be the case). Admittedly, the emphasis is a bit different in that justification in the other instances is from God's own charges (or the Law) whereas here it is from other parties. But the affirmation, "it is God who justifies" returns the act of justification to God Himself and surely issues in the believer being "righted". I would think, therefore, that usage is consistent and should translate into a consistent categorization as either agent-patient or experiencer-stimulus as well.

One of the things that makes Case Frames so tricky to implement is precisely that there are theological presuppositions that necessarily come into play.

Consider the question of whether justification implies a real change or transformation of the believer, or is simply an external declaration on God's part. The answer one gives to that question impacts the Case Frame classification - if it is simply an external declaration, then I would think Experiencer is the correct answer. I think the classification of most of those verbs as Agent is correct, but my point is that there actually is a theological decision that accompanies the Case Frame classification, and that there is no way around that, given that Case Frames take into account meaning, not just form.

I think that probably in this case, the juridical context is so clear, and in reference to people who are already believers, that whoever classified the verb considered it as a mainly external declaration here, more than a transformative action on God's part. But probably the best answer is that both are implied in one way or another, and it's more of a matter of emphasis than anything else. My take on it, anyway.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/696935#Comment_696935

One of the things that makes Case Frames so tricky to implement is precisely that there are theological presuppositions that necessarily come into play

Hence the question: what has Logos used as the basis for these classifications? Are they using pre-existing lexical resources and simply translating the various semantic options into case frames or is a team making these decisions? BDAG for instance has both verses of Romans 8:30, 33 under the same sense.

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/696940#Comment_696940

Experiencer is a very narrow category. I do not agree with the classification in the first example.

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/696940#Comment_696940

Are they using pre-existing lexical resources and simply translating the various semantic options into case frames or is a team making these decisions?

It's in-house work... and quite ground breaking (as in, never done before). Mike Aubrey did the NT case frames classification, and Jeremy Thompson did the OT. cf. http://www.jeremythompson.ws/2014/10/28/explore-meaning-with-case-frames-in-logos-6-or-what-ive-worked-on-for-the-last-year-logos6/

(side note - this type of info should be included in the documentation)

BDAG for instance has both verses of Romans 8:30, 33 under the same sense.

Good point - although interestingly it also mentions right before about the meaning of "justify", "there is sometimes no clear distinction between the justifying action of acquittal and the gift of new life through the Holy Spirit", and then gives these verses as examples of that, which is at least similar to the distinction I made above about how both factors come into play, and it might be more a matter of emphasis than anything, as to which is stronger, at least in some passages.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/696961#Comment_696961

It's in-house work

This does not necessarily preclude the use of previous resources as the basis for categorization according to semantic frames. I do wonder how the user may know what criteria are used to make decisions. For instance, with regard to Romans 8:33, you came up with an idea as to why it may have been categorized that way. You may be correct or, for all we know, it could be a bug as there are in various areas of categorization in Logos 6. How are we to know? Although the data is designed to help with interpretation, it would appear that it some cases, it requires to be interpreted first.

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/696976#Comment_696976

I do wonder how the user may know what criteria are used to make decisions. For instance, with regard to Romans 8:33, you came up with an idea as to why it may have been categorized that way. You may be correct or, for all we know, it could be a bug as there are in various areas of categorization in Logos 6. How are we to know? Although the data is designed to help with interpretation, it would appear that it some cases, it requires to be interpreted first.

Hopefully Mike will jump in and let us know what he was thinking!

Apart from what is in the documentation, the only thing we really know is that his work was in good part based on Danove's work, especially Linguistics and Exegesis in the Gospel of Mark. Interesting, but not in any way conclusive in either direction, for the case of Romans 8:33 from that book are here and here.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/696981#Comment_696981

I don't have Danovre, so I can't look up the references you provided.

I would think that the purpose of Case Frames should be to help users find instances that correspond to certain semantic patterns, not tell them what the semantic pattern is for a particular verse.

Either one does not understand case frames and then it does not really matter what the tool tells that person about Romans 8:33 or one understands it and presumably the tool would help the person compare Romans 8:33 with other similar semantic situations or confirm/challenge how the person reads it.

But whatever be the case, it cannot be prescriptive. For this reason, it might be profitable to have several clearly identified sources for the choices made and a system of notation for where the sources differ. I would imagine that in examples like "David killed Goliath" there would not be much area for (reasonable) disagreement, so one would assume that there should be a lot of agreement but some passages (a few? many?) where there are a couple main competing options and these could be indicated.

However, if there is not some sort of comparative base for the tool then who is to say 1) how many false positives there would be my search results and 2) how many potential omissions (i.e., categorized according to a different understand) would be missing from my analysis?

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/697147#Comment_697147

But whatever be the case, it cannot be prescriptive.

Exactly. This, and just about every other tool or book or commentary, offers a certain educated author(s)'s opinion, that necessarily implies perspective, worldview, theology, choices, etc., etc. That doesn't mean it can't be true or false, or more so or less, but it is what it is, and we shouldn't ask it to be what it can't be (i.e. the definitive answer). (as a side note - I fount this article about this as applied to Biblical studies here interesting). Especially as case frames necessarily imply interpreting the text, and not just sometimes, but very often (or even arguably all the time).

And, to make it still more interesting, there are no other sources, because this is the first time it's ever been done!

They did say they're trying to follow Danovre, so you should try to purchase that if you want more info. But you'll be disappointed with what you find. Not because Danovre does a bad job, but because he only analyzes the Gospel of Mark. He does describe a little more in depth the meaning of the categories, though, but not too much!

That being said, it would be great if they provided more Bibliography, certainly, or other authors that are important, especially if they were regularly consulted - MJ also seems to have studied these a lot and might have some good suggestions.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/697169#Comment_697169

This, and just about every other tool or book or commentary

Case frames seems to me to be closer to BDAG in kind than to commentaries. First, it has affinities with lexico-grammatical categories which are quite stable (not much debate about whether a word is a sentence's subject, verb or object, though there are debates about things like whether a present is historical or not). Second, Danovre may have ported case frames into biblical studies, and Logos may be the first to make it into a tool but neither came up with it: there is theory and controls that govern how it should be applied to biblical texts. I would argue that, as I alluded to before with regard to looking up how BDAG categorizes Romans 8:33, there are resources that give indications as to what case frames could be attributed to any given verse/clause. What I mean is that Jeremy Thompson or Mike Aubrey did not read verses they examined without prior knowledge and all by their lone selves decide what the frames will be. Hopefully, they consulted appropriate resources on sense and interpretation and then ascribed frames correspondingly. So, the assignment of frames may be new, but it does not follow that there is no prior resource(s) behind it. Hopefully, what there is behind is not just an indistinguishable soup of the various lexical, linguistic and theological influences that contribute to any contributor's idiosyncratic views, but a more systematic approach that can explain how decisions were made.

Thanks for the link to the article, I'll take a look.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/697186#Comment_697186

Before reading further go to https://framenet2.icsi.berkeley.edu/fnReports/data/frame/Religious_belief.xml then https://framenet2.icsi.berkeley.edu/fnReports/data/frame/Justifying.xml

Quick intro: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/40661/differences-between-case-frames-and-semantic-role-labeling

Martha Palmer is a significant researcher in this area:

http://books.google.com/books/about/Semantic_Role_Labeling.html?id=6C1Ag3NUqNEC

http://verbs.colorado.edu/~mpalmer/publications.html

should get you started

or the resources on this reading list https://topics.logos.com/Logos$2fVerbum_dataset_and_visualization_information

browsing http://verbs.colorado.edu/verb-index/index.php should get you feeling comfortable with them and understanding why certain classification choices are made

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/697367#Comment_697367

Thank you, MJ, for these resources. Some I have already read, others I plan to. I am sure that they will help increase my own understanding and that of others who are not scared away by the kind of material it is.

As useful as this is, it remains general theory and does not tell Logos users what specific controls Logos used to implement these concepts at the biblical level. I think that the case that has been referred to several times so far is a very good illustration of the question: on what basis was Romans 8:33 classified the way it was? Was it one person's (Jeremy or Mike) personal assessment/interpretation of the verse? Or were specific resources consulted to make this kind of decisions?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/697379#Comment_697379

If you spend enough time at the framenet site, you'll reframe (pun intended) your questions.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/697382#Comment_697382

Am I being framed? I will aim to expand my framework.

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/697367#Comment_697367

Martha Palmer is a significant researcher in this area:

http://books.google.com/books/about/Semantic_Role_Labeling.html?id=6C1Ag3NUqNEC

Significantly, in Semantic Role Labeling, Table 1.1 (A set of widely recognized Semantic Roles) describes the "Experiencer" role as:

Perceives action but not in control

The examples given are:

He tasted the delicate flavor of the baby lettuce.
Chris noticed the cat slip through the partially open door.

I would contend that "experiencer" is not a correct label in the δικαιόω entry for Rom. 8:33.

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698061#Comment_698061

Significantly, in Semantic Role Labeling, Table 1.1 (A set of widely recognized Semantic Roles) describes the "Experiencer" role as:

Perceives action but not in control

Certainly as defined there by Martha, it doesn't work for Rom 8:33. Faithlife has defined it differently, however, with a broader definition.

This text just a couple of pages later might be of interest here:

And then she talks specifically about how Agent and other case frames are often difficult to define / distinguish, which is precisely the "case" we're talking about here (although she doesn't mention Experiencer has a real option, which makes sense given her definition).

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698080#Comment_698080

The crux of the theta role "experiencer" is the reception of stimuli, without effect on the stimuli. (Here we're treading on psycholinguistics, which is arcane stuff.)

"Believe" is about as far as I'd be willing to extend the category, as in "John believed the prophet." We step into an analytical gray zone when it comes to "John accepted the prophet's advice" which is a slightly different transaction.

In my opinion, in Rom. 8:33 δικαιόω is agentive. I might see it differently if the verse had a more neutral (less positive) reading:

Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who's in charge. or
Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who makes the final decision.

Schumitinu

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698187#Comment_698187

This has been an interesting discussion. I think we have learned two things: there is theory and there is praxis. The theory for case frames is laid out quite well. And it is somewhat fixed. But when it comes to the praxis we realize it involves interpretation. I'm glad for the interpretation that Logos has provided for us. But as with the two cases discussed in this thread, we might come across cases that we don't agree or that don't make sense to us. So it is good to discuss them. And that's why I said this discussion has been both helpful and informative. I'd suggest that somebody starts a faithlife group where we can continue to discuss our findings in relation to case frames and semantic roles. I'd find that very beneficial as we are able to learn from each other's understanding and insight. This could greatly enrich our exegesis. At the same time it would provide a platform to bring cases to the attention of others and find clarification.

Just a thought.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698544#Comment_698544

This could greatly enrich our exegesis.

I share the desire for enriched exegesis, but I would like it to come not from trying to figure out whether case frame categorizations are interesting possibilities I never considered or if there happened to be an error there. A lot of the discussion so far is speculation about the puzzle of the way Rom 8:33 was labeled and by not means any assurance that this is a real exegetical choice worth sweating over.

I would say that this is my frustration so far with the tool. I have read all of the resources MJ suggested and while they have their use in making frame theory and categories clearer, they do not solve questions that regard how it is implemented in Logos 6.

The net result is that whenever I intend to use the tool to pursue an exegetical question, I bump into these questions and end up being unable to reach any conclusion and so, any sure benefit. I would be curious to hear -- beyond exegetically unillustrative examples such as you can find "I dine" as opposed to "I eat" -- examples of how it has proved concretely and practically fruitful in bringing answers to real exegetical questions. I am not implying that it is unable to do so, simply that my own struggles have made the endeavor rather fruitless so far and thus make me (and perhaps others) want for useful examples.

For instance, this morning, I was looking again at pisteuo and was thinking about the possibility of using the ability to search semantic categories to find different ways in which the verb is used and what is the content of faith. But I soon ran into the problem that the categorization of frames is limited to clauses. So I have verses in which the content of belief is indicated, but since it is not in the same clause, it is not labeled in a Experiencer-Stimulus-Content relationship that I can actually search and find. If the content is in another clause, it will be connected to the other clause's verb, even though it clearly indicates, in context, what the content of pisteuo is. For that reason, if you consider the wheel below, you can see how few verses can actually be "found" via this tool if one's question is: what is the content of faith?

I am not sure how to overcome or circumvent this obstacle. But this is precisely the kind of questions that I can think of as being a useful application of the tool, so if that won't work, what else can I do with it?

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698578#Comment_698578

I've been advocating that Logos should fully document their approach to such things. I also feel that such helps are ultimately just a reference for users to consider.

Semantic role labelling involves our reasonable interpretation of the "transaction" described, so there's no running away from personal interpretation. Done properly, accurate semantic labelling aids our understanding of some points of grammar, and can sharpen our exegesis.

While δικαιόω has a relatively narrow range of senses, πιστεύω has a broader range of senses and thus conceivably licences a broader range of semantic roles. That's just my opinion anyway. You may want to come to your own conclusions after a deeper study.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698578#Comment_698578

I find them useful for such things as:

is the "added word" (a term I hate) implicit in the text as a necessary but nonexplicit role
does the paraphrase retain the correct frame structure
how does the original language verb vary from the English translation in terms of required and adjunct frame entities ... and what does this tell me about the difference in meaning in the two languages
when looking at a "necessary sequence of verbs" [from a "failed" Verb Oceans project] what is the expected change in roles in the frame entities e.g. sell --> buy --> own is a verb sequence. Anomalies are often interesting in this context

I sometimes disagree with the Lexham clause analysis or morphology so why shouldn't I disagree with their semantic roles and frames; and I dislike their choice of grammatical categories ... I like the more precise, longer lists of "parts-of-speech".

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698696#Comment_698696

I find them useful for such things as:

is the "added word" (a term I hate) implicit in the text as a necessary but nonexplicit role

does the paraphrase retain the correct frame structure

how does the original language verb vary from the English translation in terms of required and adjunct frame entities ... and what does this tell me about the difference in meaning in the two languages

when looking at a "necessary sequence of verbs" [from a "failed" Verb Oceans project] what is the expected change in roles in the frame entities e.g. sell --> buy --> own is a verb sequence. Anomalies are often interesting in this context

Thanks, MJ, that is quite useful. If at all possible, an example of something you found by doing this kind of things would make what you explain even more concrete and help visualize how it could be put to use in other scenarios.

Rick Brannan (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698578#Comment_698578

I was looking again at pisteuo and was thinking about the possibility of using the ability to search semantic categories to find different ways in which the verb is used and what is the content of faith

Hi Francis.

One issue here is that "Content" in the case frame analysis is really geared towards speaking or thinking. Here's the definition from the glossary:

[quote]Content — The content of a speech act or of a mental activity, such as thought; for example, “David said to Bathsheba, ‘Solomon will be king’ (Content)” or “David thought to himself: Solomon should be king (Content).”

So it doesn't quite work in the way you're trying to use it. That said, instead of Bible Word Study, you could've instead attempted a clause search for:

This will find clauses with the verb lemma of πιστευω and any "Content" role. You could try something similar for "Theme". If you're looking for combinations of particular clause verbs and frames, then the clause search is usually the best way to explore.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698718#Comment_698718

EDIT: after reproducing the clause search, it became clear that -- at least in this case -- it does not allow me to find anything that was not already findable in the case frame ring (Exp-Con, Exp-[Con] and Con-Exp).

Rick Brannan (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698724#Comment_698724

Should I understand that the returns in the scenario you proposed are based on verses not clauses? What I mean is that if I search two terms such as verb-lemma and content in your example, it will produce verses that have them both though they may not actually be in the same clause?

The clause search uses clauses as the boundary units, not verses. So the verse reference in the left column is essentially calculated after-the-fact. That is, you can read it as "the verse(s) that contain the clauses I found."

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698735#Comment_698735

In Mt 9:28 below, "I am able to do this" describes what "to believe" pertains to, but since it is a different clause, I cannot search for this specifically using either BWS or clause search:

Although case frames aims to overcome the limitations imposed by syntactical relationship (e.g., subject-object / active-passive, etc), clearly it is still bound to a major one that limits its exploration of semantics, that is, its application within the bounds of one clause. Although I understand that each verb has its own specific type and number of arguments, the fact is that in this sentence "that I am able to do this" answers the question "what X is the blind man to believe?". In other words, without that clause the verb of the first clause would be missing a required argument. So, as it is, it seems to me that the way it works does not account for semantic relationships at the subordinate or relative clause level. The limitation to one clause can therefore provide an artificial representation of the semantic situation.

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698875#Comment_698875

If we have to choose between clause and verse level, limiting on the clause level is much better than limiting on the verse level - as limiting on the verse level would fill our searches with false hits.

That being said, if there were a way to indicate that a specific case frame actually involves two clauses as Francis suggest (and as is often the case with verbs like πιστευω), that could really improve the usefulness of the tool, without falling into false hits.

Although... shouldn't all these examples where a subordinate clause = content be classified as [Content] with brackets around them already? I've noticed that's how it's classified already with the verb λεγω, for example.

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698878#Comment_698878

One way I have found of doing this is involves a number of additional steps:

Clause search for lemma-verb:pisteuo only.
Export to a passage list.
Clause search for content:ANY only.
Export to a passage list.
Merge both lists using the intersection criteria. Since the intersection criteria merges verses it allows us to put find verses in which pisteuo could be found in one clause and content in another. Of course, there will be false positives like this since there is no guarantee that the content found will describe what one is to believe.

In the picture above, obviously the second pane (content:ANY) has many verses that include content but not pisteuo. It is more interesting to evaluate the value of the merged list by comparing the third pane (the intersection) with the first (lemma-verb:pisteuo). For instance, it appears that Mt 18:6 has pisteuo but not content ("in Me" is Stimulus here). One could conceivably, do the same thing with verb-pisteuo on the one hand and stimulus:ANY on the other hand, then merge again. It the end, it seems to be a lot of steps and possibly many false positives.

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698879#Comment_698879

Nice idea, Francis.

I've also found it very helpful to compare and contrast Clause searches, where I combine "verb-sense" commands together with case-frame commands, such as experiencer, or agent.

Related to the question of Romans 8:33, here are some searches:

experiencer:ANY

verb-sense:to condemn (declare guilty) experiencer:ANY

verb-sense:to condemn (declare guilty) agent:ANY

verb-sense:to declare blessed agent:ANY

verb-sense:to declare blessed experiencer:ANY

verb-sense:to be justified patient:ANY

verb-sense:to be justified experiencer:ANY

verb-sense:to justify agent:ANY

verb-sense:to justify experiencer:ANY

A few conclusions from looking at these results

- At least following the way these things have been classified, it seems it would be more consistent to classify Rom 8:33 as agent. That being said, the experiencer:ANY search clearly indicates that experiencer is broader than simply passive reception of stimuli.

- It would be really, really helpful if the search results could highlight not only the clause, but also (maybe in red letters or some other color) the actual words within the clause that are the real hits. For example, the search for "verb-sense:to declare blessed agent:ANY" and "verb-sense:to declare blessed experiencer:ANY" return exactly the same verse and clause results. Which word is the agent, and which is the experiencer? We don't know from the search results. If we could see highlighted in red, or some other color, the actual verb and the actual "experiencer" or "agent", that would be extremely helpful.

- Searches like this would seem to be a good way to review the data, find possible areas for improvement, or correction, etc.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698884#Comment_698884

One thing I like about the Frame-Net site is its use of different colors to highlight different roles ... they overdo it but ...

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698893#Comment_698893

It would be really, really helpful if the search results could highlight not only the clause, but also (maybe in red letters or some other color) the actual words within the clause that are the real hits. For example, the search for "verb-sense:to declare blessed agent:ANY" and "verb-sense:to declare blessed experiencer:ANY" return exactly the same verse and clause results. Which word is the agent, and which is the experiencer? We don't know from the search results. If we could see highlighted in red, or some other color, the actual verb and the actual "experiencer" or "agent", that would be extremely helpful.

Thank you Devin for your examples and comments. I agree with your suggestion above.

Obviously, the participants and case frames sections work in complementary way in relation to clause search. I have found that one way to quickly find out what the case frames are in a verse is to type the verse reference as the passage the BWS should focus on (as opposed to larger sections such as a book or corpus). The only downside of this quick look-up practice (a custom guide could be made with only participants and case frames to reduce the time it takes for the guide to populate) is that Logos 6 still has this [8o|] ANNOYING [8o|] approach to passage ranges whereby one cannot simply use a search range; it gets "saved" every time.

In the example below, I ran BWS on Matthew 18:6 and as a result, it got "saved" in my list of passage ranges. So I have two options, leave it there but then the more I use different passages, the more the list would become cluttered. Or have to clean up every time. I brought this up several times since previous versions, but there has not been much response either from fellow users or FL. We need a third option that allows users to use but not save a passage.

Related to the question of Romans 8:33, here are some searches:

experiencer:ANY

verb-sense:to condemn (declare guilty) experiencer:ANY

verb-sense:to condemn (declare guilty) agent:ANY

verb-sense:to declare blessed agent:ANY

verb-sense:to declare blessed experiencer:ANY

verb-sense:to be justified patient:ANY

verb-sense:to be justified experiencer:ANY

verb-sense:to justify agent:ANY

verb-sense:to justify experiencer:ANY

Although I did search sense with arguments before, your list added a dimension I had not thought about so far: explore the different senses of a verb and checking to see whether there is any correlation with the number and kind of arguments the verb takes.

This led to that: the discovery that the BSL can be used with Greek or Hebrew lemmas!

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698884#Comment_698884

That being said, the experiencer:ANY search clearly indicates that experiencer is broader than simply passive reception of stimuli.

Cross linguistically, the more narrow "passive reception of stimuli" definition of "experiencer" has been found useful. If Logos has a wider category of "experiencer", it would be helpful for this approach to be clearly stated in the documentation.

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/698990#Comment_698990

Cross linguistically, the more narrow "passive reception of stimuli" definition of "experiencer" has been found useful. If Logos has a wider category of "experiencer", it would be helpful for this approach to be clearly stated in the documentation.

The documentation reads like this:

[quote]

Experiencer — The person or thing that experiences a state or a mental event or activity

This definition is significantly broader than a strict understanding of passive reception of stimuli, and that is reflected in the results of the search for experiencer:ANY. Just looking through the results, it looks like actions like believing, emotions (including towards other people), verbs that express interpersonal relationships, and choosing are included, as well as verbs like commanding, appealing to, being possessed, dying, worshiping, etc. come up.

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699023#Comment_699023

There are gray zones in any analysis. But commanding? Hmmmm...

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699031#Comment_699031

There are gray zones in any analysis. But commanding? Hmmmm...

Looks like the experiencer there is the one being commanded, which makes sense I guess. The one commanding is the agent, and what is commanded the content. I would imagine "appeal to" works similarly.

BWS on parangellw

In this Bible Word Study, in the Agent-Content-Experiencer section, Matthew 10:5 has a clear error, with content and experiencer interchanged.

By the way, the color coding and mouse hovering of the results in the BWS is fantastic - if we could get something similar on the Clause Search, that would be great.

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699047#Comment_699047

Crosslinguistically, and from a psycholinguistic viewpoint, I would not extend the category this far.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699031#Comment_699031

I made the mistake of looking into this although I clearly should be making some phone calls. And I'll have to admit the coding in the genealogy of Matthew has me puzzled. To say that Abraham is the experiencer would imply that the verb means "to be the father of" where the verb clearly means "to father" (well, if I knew Greek I'd say it clearly means "beget, father ..."

I wonder if Faithlife failed to recognize that the list of semantic roles is never to be taken as comprehensive ... one may always run into verbs that are a class unto themselves which is how Prop Bank/VerbNet treats the birth/father/beget .... cluster.

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699070#Comment_699070

To say that Abraham is the experiencer would imply that the verb means "to be the father of" where the verb clearly means "to father" (well, if I knew Greek I'd say it clearly means "beget, father ..."

I had noticed the same thing when I saw these verses, but never took the time to investigate... this would seem to clearly be agent-patient (at least if you want to fit them into a category... you say Verbnet has them as a class unto themselves). Certainly not experiencer-stimulus, though. As you mention, the Greek is clearly "Abraham fathered/begot Isaac", and that is so throughout the entire genealogy, except for very last verb, where it says that Jesus "was born" of Mary.

This looks like an instance where the case frames were done based on the English (say, with the ESV or NRSV translation, "Abraham was the father of Isaac"), not the Greek. Although, maybe there's some reasoning behind it we're missing? - every instance of gennaw is classified along the same lines!

The Lexham Theological Wordbook has a nice summary of the Greek meaning... seems pretty "agent-patienty" to me:

This verb refers to the act of either a father or a mother in producing a child; the father begets (gennaō) the child (Matt 1:2–16; also Acts 7:8, 29), and the mother gives birth (gennaō; Luke 1:57; 23:29).

An interesting parallel verb is "bara" in Hebrew. This verb is classified as agent-patient!

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699079#Comment_699079

Maybe my experience is limited, but it looks like another over-extension of the category...

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699053#Comment_699053

Crosslinguistically, and from a psycholinguistic viewpoint, I would not extend the category this far.

How would you classify states like "He died", or mental activities like "She got angry at him" that Faithlife has classified as "Experiencer" or "Experiencer - Stimulus"?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699096#Comment_699096

With my warped sense of humor, I'd let them keep it as experiencer if they applied it to Isaac ... he was pretty passive at the point of begetting.[:P]

Fr Devin Roza

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699117#Comment_699117

I'd let them keep it as experiencer if they applied it to Isaac ... he was pretty passive at the point of begetting.

LOL. [:D]

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699116#Comment_699116

Crosslinguistically, and from a psycholinguistic viewpoint, I would not extend the category this far.

How would you classify states like "He died", or mental activities like "She got angry at him" that Faithlife has classified as "Experiencer" or "Experiencer - Stimulus"?

As a verb, I would say that die requires a patient from among the options Logos gives me as it is usually not done willfully but happens as the result of a cause with an agent. And I would argue that it may need to be nuanced for situations such as "lost his will to live" ...

As for "got angry at" it depends a bit on your view of the function of "got" in the sentence ... but the basic verb is "to anger" which I'd normally think of as experiencer-stimulus where in theory "him" is the stimulus and "she" the experiencer which I'm sure he'll deny ... he'll claim she is both the stimulus and the experiencer ... that's my psycholinguistic twist.

It occurs to me seriously, that it would be easier to track their thinking if they had included the adjunct roles.

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699116#Comment_699116

Crosslinguistically, and from a psycholinguistic viewpoint, I would not extend the category this far.

How would you classify states like "He died", or mental activities like "She got angry at him" that Faithlife has classified as "Experiencer" or "Experiencer - Stimulus"?

Much of it depends upon the "transaction" or "action" that the speaker has in his mind's eye.

I can do no better than to quote from p. 24 of Semantic Role Universals and Argument Linking: Theoretical, Typological, and Psycholinguistic Perspectives:

The concept of semantic role becomes less interesting for stative verbs, which lack a dynamic identification of roles, and it breaks down with symmetric verbs, which, by definition, allow each argument in each position. There are always some classes of verbs for which semantic roles cannot predict argument linking....
Another field in which the concept of semantic roles would have to prove useful is the formation of complex predicates. Causatives add a causer, affectives (in Basque) add an experiencer, and assistives (in Quechua) add an assistant in higher position (thereby downgrading the former agent to a causee or assistee), while applicatives add a beneficiary, an instrumental or a location in lower position.... All these operations introduce a new semantic role in virtue of the fact that they add a predicate with a further argument. Therefore, the notion of semantic role is not necessary for capturing the resulting grammatical effects.

I hesitate to comment more, because I have reservations about two issues that are beginning to surface, :

(1) Are the categories delineated in a useful and/or generally accepted way?

(2) Are the taggings consistent with the categories as defined?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699297#Comment_699297

I understand your reservation but from my perspective it is like mode of linguistic theory - there is a structure (tree structure, dependency structure, clause structure ...) where different theorist supply different perspectives and distinctives from which you pick and choose to fit your specific needs at this time. What is important to me is that the concept of arguments, core arguments and adjunct arguments is stable; it is not important to me that the labeling of the semantic entities filling the arguments are stable. But differing naming conventions should exhibit similar clustering behavior.

I am not yet convinced that Logos has an ideal implementation because I am not quite convinced that it reflects the underlying Greek or Hebrew rather than the English -- the genealogy is a good example of why.

If I may go off on a tangent to a somewhat parallel situation. Just as a number of new "linguistics" developed out of natural language processing/artificial intelligence research so a number of new "logics" developed out of earlier computer science/artificial intelligence research. Both linguistics and logic ended up with a number of overlapping theory from which one picks and chooses to meet specific needs. In logic, there is a movement bringing logic back to its roots Greek/Medieval/Arabic/Buddhist in debate and dialogue. This movement places the various logics within a metagaming framework which allows for the integration of the logics and the rationalization of the selection of a logic process. I think that linguistics is also moving closer to a integrative metaframework that will allow each of us to rationalize our selection of a particular set of semantic role terms for a particular set of circumstances. I suspect the answer for Wunderlich is that a different set of distinctives/roles need to be developed for the stative verbs ... shall I start rereading my abhidhamma theory of perception with this in mind?

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699308#Comment_699308

At the risk of adding more psycholinguistic babble...

"John dies" is not really stative but dynamic and telic, i.e. John changes from a living state into a (final) dead state.

In an utterance "John got angry with the prophet" the speaker may conceive of the anger as John's passive response to the prophet's behaviour (i.e. the prophet did that, and when John saw it an emotion of anger was evoked) or the prophet having caused John's anger (paraphrase as something like "the prophet caused John to become upset").

M.J. makes a good point that we should apply this kind of fine analysis to the original Greek or Hebrew. The exact same "scene" may be described as different transactions or actions by speakers of different languages (or even different speakers of one language), e.g. "John had a cold", "John came down with a cold", "a cold hit John".

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699437#Comment_699437

I think, however, the discussion shows the value of the framework in forcing the user to grapple in more detail with précising what the verb means and potential differences between the Greek & English. But like clause visualizations, discourse analysis, parsing, propositional outlines ... there is the question of how to avoid becoming passive users of someone else's results when the primary value is in the grappling.

Schumitinu

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/699476#Comment_699476

I think, however, the discussion shows the value of the framework in forcing the user to grapple in more detail with précising what the verb means and potential differences between the Greek & English. But like clause visualizations, discourse analysis, parsing, propositional outlines ... there is the question of how to avoid becoming passive users of someone else's results when the primary value is in the grappling.

Exactly my point when I suggested a Faithlife group on the topic