New Feature: Case Frames Guide Section

Rick Brannon said:

The distribution of case frames for the verb is shown by the ring graph

Now, can you explain it in words?  Silly graphs are of no use to me.  I would say that it is all Greek to me, but then I might understand it.

George Somsel said:

Now, can you explain it in words?

I'll try to explain what I understand and have seen of the feature. First, it applies to verbs only (right now???). Second, it operates on the premise that verbs have different meanings, senses, semantic understandings. What they've tried to do is identify the patterns with which an individual verb is used and correlate a pattern with a particular meaning of the verb. Thus if you see verb 'A' used with pattern 'X' in a particular passage, and the verb predominately has a certain meaning when used in pattern 'X', then the chances are high that it has that meaning in that that passage.

A pattern seems to consist of whether and what kind of subject, whether and what kind of object, result of the verb (e.g. movement in a "direction"), etc. In the screenshot from the start of this thread, there's a pattern with an "Agent" and a "Patient." Those terms have technical meanings - you can click on them to see them in the glossary.

I think if you use the tool on a verb or two that you're familiar with, what they're trying to do will make more sense. Whether you agree with how they classify the patterns and the senses they assign those patterns is another question...

Donnie

Understanding what it does isn't so hard.  It inflicts discipline on readers if they lack the "self" variety.  Which is good.  

It seems intuitive to me if you just look at what it does.  What tosses me is the tagging--agent, patient.   Maybe I am not astute enough as a ɡrəˈmerēən to remember these terms.  I don't recall even studying them, but who knows...probably did.   So its a good refresher for that.

Jeremy Thompson said:

I was one of the curators for this feature. I've written a little bit longer explanation of the feature on my blog and plan to write more about it over the coming weeks: 

Explore Meaning with Case Frames in Logos 6

And I'd be glad to try to answer any other questions you might have here.

MJ provided a nice framework to drape some details on.

Writing about it is good.[:)].. but since it's a visual tool, engaging in it's use in a video with a diversity of examples, results and the assessments of the results and what could/can be concluded from the results would be a far better explanation. [;)]

Jeremy Thompson said:

Hi Anthony:
Request for more video explanation duly noted, though I personally think I have great a voice for silent movies . We do have a video for Semantic Roles up currently and another blog post about semantic roles where I use the example of Jesus baptizing versus being baptized.  These aren't strictly about case frames, but semantic roles and case frames are related since case frames are made up of semantic roles.  So, the video linked to above may be helpful for the time being and does mention case frames toward the end.

Thanks Jeremy, I'll have a look. [:)]       

Rick, 

somehow I never noticed this (or was this implemented in Logos 6?), so big thanks for taking time to point out this small but very important (for me at least) feature!

If I know my Hebrew and can read sentences containing the root שוב without the assistance of a lexicon or an interlinear, is this of any use to me? If it is, how?

Fr Devin Roza said:

David Knoll said:

If I know my Hebrew and can read sentences containing the root שוב without the assistance of a lexicon or an interlinear, is this of any use to me? If it is, how?

I think in theory it could be, in an analogous way to how the Sense or Translation Ring can be of use. If I am able to recognize that in this particular text, this verb corresponds to a certain case frame, then being able to easily see other examples of that case frame in use in the Hebrew Bible could possibly be of use in the exegesis or translation of a passage. I think that identifying the type of case frame could also at times help avoid certain misinterpretations of a passage, or at least provide an additional argument in favor of a certain interpretation, if a different interpretation would imply a different case frame, that for X reason doesn't seem to work here.

But these haven't been used too much yet in exegetical commentaries - this science is only around 50 years old. Maybe the commentaries that come out in the next few decades will start to take advantage of them and it will become clearer how useful they are or aren't for Biblical studies. 

I wonder if you could give a concrete example, even a tiny one. I simply don't see what this is for. I am open to using new tools, but how exactly?

George where have you been all this time?

David Knoll said:

George where have you been all this time?

I don't have L6 yet so I really can't comment.

Jeremy Thompson said:

Exactly. This is a terminological problem in the field of linguistics itself. Sometimes different terminology is used for similar things: argument structure, valency, frames, etc. The difference here is that we have analyzed semantic valency (there's syntax underlying the analysis too that we're not showing).

For example, a subject doesn't perform the same function for the active and passive form of a verb - "he ate the food" vs. "the food was eaten". In each of those examples, "food" is in a "Patient" role even though in one case it is an object and in the other case it is a subject.  So, the tool also provides a way of dealing with the ambiguity of grammatical terms like "subject" and "object."

You really need to prepare a detailed guide on how to use this with practical examples and explain how you analysed the verbs and the meaning of each term.  "Goal", "Theme", "Locative", "Benefactive" are not familiar to the average scholar (at least not in the manner that you use these terms). 

And the programmers need to set the default when you type Hebrew characters in BWS to Hebrew and not Aramaic. It is very annoying.

Jeremy Thompson said:

We have tried to make a start with this with the Lexham Glossary of Semantic Roles. I hope the link works. My first try at a link into the software from the internet I think.

Very interesting. I'll read it through. Perhaps you could put a link to this glossary near the wheel so that the user would know where to find the definitions if he is puzzled.

Jeremy Thompson said:

David Knoll said:

Very interesting. I'll read it through. Perhaps you could put a link to this glossary near the wheel so that the user would know where to find the definitions if he is puzzled.

I'm pretty sure Rick is following this thread. So, I'm certain a note will be made of this request. I would also mention that the definitions are available when you scroll over the lists below the wheel. Clicking on one of the roles should take you to the glossary.

+[Y]  When all else fails click everywhere. lol

This, in essence, is the fundamental problem with the lack of proper documentation. We are given features like this which sound very powerful. But for documentation we have very basic descriptions and definitions and not concrete examples of how to use them. For instance, I read Jeremy Thompson's blog. Thank you for posting it but, in my opinion, it stops short of demonstrating in what ways it can be useful and not just interesting. There should be several different and concrete illustrations of use. 

When I go to the help menu, what I get is stuff like "searches helps you find things". "click on Bible to search Bibles"...

Quote

If this was available in 5, I just upgraded with the core to 6 and I found a Case Frames section doing a Word Study Guide, but there are no results for the same word and book selection given at the top of this thread. I tried selecting various Greek testaments and still get no results. What would be the steps to recreate this same example? Do I need to be in a different guide? Do I need to point it to a specific resource in the Case Frames settings?

Noting that I had 5.0 Silver and just got the engine core upgrade for 6.0, did I lose this feature in the upgrade? I was seeing many people saying you would not lose features. Did this one miss out in the upgrade?

Thanks!

Chris