Semantic Roles Guide

I watched the youtube video on Semantic Roles, but there's a lot mentioned that I don't know what they mean or how to use them. The Clause Participants was hard to grasp, in particular the With Stimulus, Agent, Patient, Experiencer, etc, sections.

Also the Case Frames.

Are these all things that can be better understood going over a English grammar book 101? or are they still Greek grammar concepts? Where can I become more familiar with these tools.

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Mark Barnes

You need the Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles!

You can also access it from the Case Frames section of the BWS, by clicking on words like "Patient", etc.

Anthony

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/649407#Comment_649407

You need the Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles!

You can also access it from the Case Frames section of the BWS, by clicking on words like "Patient", etc.

You said that with such enthusiasm that I pictured a hero and cape with that message [:D]

This is great, I will look over it today!

Rick Brannan (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/649424#Comment_649424

Hi Anthony.

One of the editors of that dataset wrote a post on his personal blog about using case frames and semantic roles.

Here's the post: 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/

Jeremy Thompson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/649436#Comment_649436

Anthony:

I'm the editor that Rick mentioned. So, I'm following along on this thread now and can try to answer any further questions you might have about the dataset. In the comments section of the blog post Rick linked to, I also had a good question about the practical value of this data, and I plan to write more about that soon.

Anthony

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/649512#Comment_649512

Anthony:

I'm the editor that Rick mentioned. So, I'm following along on this thread now and can try to answer any further questions you might have about the dataset. In the comments section of the blog post Rick linked to, I also had a good question about the practical value of this data, and I plan to write more about that soon.

I'm looking forward to more you have to expound on, I'll follow for the next post.

I did a search on the Greek word choke (συμπνίγω) and was examining the results. Mark 4:7 shows as an Agent-Patient example, but it seems to me the Agent is labeled wrong, if I understand correctly. Shouldn't the thorns be the agent in this verse?

Jeremy Thompson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/649535#Comment_649535

That's actually on account of Greek being inflected and English not. If you check out all of the other verbs, they aren't colored, but that one is green like all of the rest of the Agents. That means the Agent is built into the verb in this case. So, a more literal rendering of the Greek might be "the thorns grew up and [Agent they] choked it." But, the English translation doesn't render the "they" since it's unnecessary in English, so we can only really highlight the verb there.

Perhaps there's a clearer way for us to handle that, though. I'm not sure there is, but I will note that as something to think about.

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/649552#Comment_649552

That's actually on account of Greek being inflected and English not. If you check out all of the other verbs, they aren't colored, but that one is green like all of the rest of the Agents. That means the Agent is built into the verb in this case. So, a more literal rendering of the Greek might be "the thorns grew up and [Agent they] choked it." But, the English translation doesn't render the "they" since it's unnecessary in English, so we can only really highlight the verb there.

Perhaps there's a clearer way for us to handle that, though. I'm not sure there is, but I will note that as something to think about.

Jeremy,

this stuff is probably well over my head, but I understand the inflection issue and that a Greek verb may be a complete sentence since it contains a built-in subject. But in this example it seems to me that the subject is not implied but explicit: the thorns. Or am I overlooking something?

Mick

Jeremy Thompson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/649571#Comment_649571

Hi Mick:

You're right this is a good question. It does depend somewhat on the way you read the syntax. And that's an aspect of this I didn't mention: the case-frames have syntactic analysis underlying them. And at least in this case, Cascadia analyzes this as two separate clauses that form parts of a larger clause. In Cascadia (screenshot below), "the thorns" is the subject of one clause and the subject of the next clause is not explicit. So, the syntactic analysis underlying the case-frames is treating this like "the thorns grew up and [Agent they] choked it." And the only thing we could put an Agent on in that second clause was the verb.

Jeremy Thompson

For those on this thread who might be interested, I've got a new post up on the semantic roles, in particular, with an example of how they might be useful: http://www.jeremythompson.ws/2014/11/03/searching-semantic-roles-is-awesome-in-logos-6/

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/652375#Comment_652375

Great post and great example!

You should consider reposting it on one of Logos' blogs.

Brent Hoefling

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/649436#Comment_649436

Hi Anthony.

One of the editors of that dataset wrote a post on his personal blog about using case frames and semantic roles.

Here's the post: 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/

wow - the awesome, thanks for sharing this!

Kenneth Neighoff

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/652477#Comment_652477

Thanks for posting this Jeremy.

With more exposure and use will come greater understanding.

Timothée Minard

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/652375#Comment_652375

Jeremy,

Thank you for this amazing dataset!

Is there any way to know what semantic role plays a word in a specific sentence, directly from a Bible resource (in hebrew or greek)? For example, I am reading Mat 12.31 and I want to search for verses where βλασφημία may play a similar semantic role. But I am not sure what is βλασφημία's role in Mat 12.31... Would there be an easy way to know it?

PS : Sorry about my English: it is not my native language.

Anthony H

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/652486#Comment_652486

Nice! Louw-Nida meets new media with a lexicographical steroidal booster. [:P]

"i see patterns"

Jeremy Thompson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/652486#Comment_652486

Jeremy,

Thank you for this amazing dataset!

Is there any way to know what semantic role plays a word in a specific sentence, directly from a Bible resource (in hebrew or greek)? For example, I am reading Mat 12.31 and I want to search for verses where βλασφημία may play a similar semantic role. But I am not sure what is βλασφημία's role in Mat 12.31... Would there be an easy way to know it?

PS : Sorry about my English: it is not my native language.

Hi Timothee:

There's not an easy way yet to approach this data through a noun if you are looking at a particular passage. But, we have had a related question on another forum thread about making the semantic roles clearer within a passage: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/93438.aspx

To which I can Rick's response was:
"We're considering ways to make this data more evident at the passage level, and this is a good suggestion. No promises, but know it has been heard."

Timothée Minard

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/652549#Comment_652549

Thank you for considering that. It would indeed be great to have the semantic roles informations as a visual filter, or within the right-click menu when clicking on a word.

Anthony H

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/652549#Comment_652549

....Rick's response was:

"We're considering ways to make this data more evident at the passage level, and this is a good suggestion. No promises, but know it has been heard."

I was just right clicking on a word and thinking the same thing. The right click is already "littered" with content but it would seem to me the likely position to access some minimized representation of the data. Maybe a narrow panel that pops up on the right like the "Lookup" panes (i.e., cited by, info, pronounce, etc.)

John Fidel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/652593#Comment_652593

Deleted... not relevant