Verbum Search through Tip of the Day #35b

Tip 35b: Factbook Biblical Person: Lemma: Bible Word Study: Case Frames

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The previous post gave the nuts and bolts of the application data but gave little indication of what a case frame is and how to use it.

This shows that the verb “to bless” requires one or both of these semantic roles in order to create a grammatically/semantically correct sentence:

• 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]
• Patient — The person or thing that is acted upon or caused to change; for example, “David killed Goliath (Patient).”^[2]

Square brackets [ ] indicates that the semantic role may be implicit in the context rather than explicitly stated in the clause.

Note that the roles are color-coded; the clause in highlighted in gray; mouse-over provides a definition of the semantic roles.

The first thing the frame provides is that when I read the verb “to bless”, I know to expect to see an agent and/or patient in the same sentence. The second thing that frames provide is a means to convert a literary sentence into one or more semantic actions that make up a Biblical event.

To look at Gen 12:3 in detail:

First, one needs a larger context to determine the antecedent of “you”:

12 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. ² I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”^a[3]

So the Abraham is the agent; he causes the change (becoming blessed) in the patient.

The patient is “all the families of the earth” i.e. all people (of the earth). So the semantic skeleton (action) of this clause is “Abraham blesses all people”.

To take a second example, “to separate” from Gen 13:9:

Here the case frames are much more varied in the semantic roles they contain:

• 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.”^[4]
• Comitative — A person or thing associated with or accompanying another person or thing; for example, “David argued with the officials (Comitative).”^[5]
• Locative — The place where a person or thing is situated or where an event occurs; for example, “David was found in the field (Locative).”
• Patient — The person or thing that is acted upon or caused to change; for example, “David killed Goliath (Patient).”^[7]
• 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).”
• Theme — Something that is moved from one place to another or that is located in a place; for example, “David threw the spear (Theme).”^[9]

Choosing as the example Gen 13:9. Both “yourself” (the agent) and “me” (the source) are pronouns for which we must find the antecedents by looking at the broader context.

⁸ Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herders and my herders; for we are kindred. ⁹ Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.”^[10]

“Me” refers to Abraham; “yourself” refers to Lot. So Abraham as source is what Lot as agent moves away from. This means that the semantic frame is “Lot separates from Abraham” i.e. Lot is the agent even though Abraham told/asked Lot to do so. This is an example of why I think of case frames being to narrative what well formed formulas (WFF’s) are to logic.

An aside: antecedent

Antecedent

[Topics: antecedent]

Definition

An antecedent is a word, phrase, or clause referred to endophorically by another expression which precedes or follows it.

Examples (English)

•    In the following construction, the boy is the antecedent of who:

 The boy who pitched the game is worn out.

•     In the following construction, a towel is the antecedent of one:

 If you need one, there’s a towel in the top drawer.

Sources

Crystal 1985: :17

Hartmann and Stork 1972: :14

Pei and Gaynor 1954: :15

Mish 1991: :89^[11]

^[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).

^a Or by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves

^[3] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ge 12:1–3.

^[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] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ge 13:8–9.

^[11] International Linguistics Department, Glossary of Linguistic Terms (SIL International, 1996–).