Verbum Search through Tip of the Day #37b

MJ. Smith

Tip 37b: Factbook Biblical Person: Semantic Roles

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The heading row contains:

• An expand/contract arrowhead
• A title “Semantic roles”

The subheading contains:

• An expand/contract arrowhead
• A heading that is “as”+semantic role
• Number of occurrences of Abraham the person in that role

Detail:

• Biblical reference
• Biblical text with verb highlighted in blue and the noun in orange
• As a final line, an option to run the clause search to verify the results

Final line:

• An option to save the list as a Passage list with subheadings

To fully utilize semantic roles, one needs to be as comfortable with the semantic roles as one is with grammatic roles. This means applying the definition to a particular occurrence of that role in a verse even when one doesn’t want to. Note that in the list of semantic roles Abraham is used in, the roles are provided in alphabetic order.

Agent — The person or thing that instigates an action or causes change in another person or thing; for example, “David (Agent) struck Goliath” or “David (Agent) killed Goliath.”^[1]

Benefactive — The person or thing for which an action is performed or for which something exists or happens; for example, “God fought for David  (Benefactive)” or “The gifts were for David (Benefactive).”^[2]

Comitative — A person or thing associated with or accompanying another person or thing; for example, “David argued with the officials (Comitative).”^[3]

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).”^[4]

Event — A complete action or event; for example, “David started to fight with the Philistine (Event).” ^[5]

Experiencer — The person or thing that experiences a state or a mental event or activity; for example, “David (Experiencer) saw Goliath.”

Goal — The place toward which something moves or is moved; for example, “David went to Jerusalem (Goal)” or “David threw the spear to the ground (Goal).”^[7]

Instrument — The means by which a person or thing performs an action; for example, “David struck Goliath with a stone (Instrument).”

Locative — The place where a person or thing is situated or where an event occurs; for example, “David was found in the field (Locative).”^[9]

Patient — The person or thing that is acted upon or caused to change; for example, “David killed Goliath (Patient).”^[10]

Result — The outcome of an event or action; for example, “David made Solomon king (Result).”^[11]

Source — The place from which something moves or is moved; for example, “David departed from Jerusalem (Source)” or “David dropped the spear from his hand (Source).”^[12]

Stimulus — The person, thing, or event that brings about a mental change in the person experiencing it; for example, “David saw Goliath (Stimulus).”^[13]

Theme — Something that is moved from one place to another or that is located in a place; for example, “David threw the spear (Theme).”^[14]

Topic — The focus of an activity or speech act; for example, “David spoke about the census (Topic).”^[15]

Search

For the “As Topic” example above, the entire section is shown. One can verify the results by running the Clause Search on “Topic:Abraham” that appears as the final entry of the section.

However, this search shows only the first two results. Why? Because the search is against the Lexham Hebrew Bible. The clause search may be run against:

• Holmes, Michael W. 2011–2013. The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition. Lexham Press; Society of Biblical Literature.
• Swete, Henry Barclay. 1909. The Old Testament in Greek: According to the Septuagint. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• The Lexham Hebrew Bible. 2012. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

Each of these must be run separately. Running the New Testament Search provides the additional entries”

 

Passage List

 

This section is missing at this point because the system crashes when Save as Passage List is chosen.

 

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^[1] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

^[2] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

^[3] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

^[4] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

^[5] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

^[7] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

^[9] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

^[10] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

^[11] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

^[12] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

^[13] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

^[14] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).

^[15] Jeremy Thompson, The Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).