Verbum 9 Tip 9az: Guide section: Visualizations: Semantic roles

MJ. Smith

Docx files for personal book: Verbum 9 part 1; Verbum 9 part 2; Verbum 9 part 3; Verbum 9 part 4; Verbum 9 part 5; Verbum 9 part 6; Verbum 9 part 7;  How to use the Verbum Lectionary and Missal; Verbum 8 tips 1-30; Verbum 8 tips 31-49

Reading lists: Catholic Bible Interpretation

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Case frames

A major hole in the visualizations provided by Verbum is the absence of a semantic role visualization. I say this assuming that most users find the Reed-Kellogg diagrams sufficient for grammatical role visualizations.

Some reading that provides examples of semantic role diagrams

• 22_SRL.pdf (stanford.edu) slides for a lecture on semantic role labeling
• HLW: Sentences: Schemas and Roles (indiana.edu) provides explanation of a schema (case frame) diagram

Visual filter

The University of California – Berkeley FrameNet project uses highlighting[1]:

Verbum could provide a visual filter that parallels this standard color scheme that reflected the semantic roles. User-defined visual filters do not support clause search arguments and therefore, will not serve as a work-around.

Frame diagrams

Let’s narrow our focus to: ”⁴ John the baptizer appeared^e in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.^[2]” or in the Greek as that is what one can run semantic role searches on : “⁴ ἐγένετο Ἰωάννης ^⸀ὁ βαπτίζων ἐν τῇ ^⸀ἐρήμῳ κηρύσσων βάπτισμα μετανοίας εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν.^[3]”

OpenText diagrams this as[4]:

Porter, Stanley E., Matthew Brook O’Donnell, Jeffrey T. Reed, and Randall Tan, OpenText.org. The OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament: Clause Analysis; OpenText.org Clause Analysis. Logos Bible Software, 2006 diagrams this as:

As is shown in both diagrams, there are three verbs/predicators with case frames for this verse/sentence. While a clause search identifies the same three verbs and provides case frames for them, the identification of the words filling the case frame role slots is incomplete. Note that all relevant semantic roles are checked to be shown. They do not appear because no values exist in the column.

However, a Bible Word Study begins to give clarity to the Verbum analysis. For the middle entry from the search above which has a simple Case Frame of Event:

For the verb proclaim:

For the verb baptize:

Diagramming each frame independently in Canvas:

Verbum needs to work on the accessibility, consistency, and understandability of the semantic role information as this information is more important than grammatical data.

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[1] Text_creation (berkeley.edu) accessed 8/2/2021 2:17 PM

^e Other ancient authorities read John was baptizing

^[2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Mk 1:4.

^⸀ 4 ὁ WH Treg NA28 ] – RP

^⸀       •     ἐρήμῳ WH ] + καὶ Treg NA28 RP

^[3] Michael W. Holmes, The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition (Lexham Press; Society of Biblical Literature, 2011–2013), Mk 1:4.

[4] Clause (opentext.org) accessed 8/2/2021 2:45 PM