Frame semantics in research on oral poetries: opportunities and challenges. A case study on early Arabic poetry

Abstract This paper examines the applicability of Frame Semantics in studies on oral poetries, as proposed by H.C. Boas (Boas, Hans C. 2016. Frames and constructions for the Study of oral poetics. In M. Antović & C. P. Cánovas (eds.), Oral Poetics and Cognitive Science. Vol. 56, Lingae & Litterae , 99–124. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter). It presents a case study on Early Arabic Poetry, and Classical Arabic frames analogous to the English Revenge. The goal of the study was to assess the utility of the FrameNet model in systematically recording oral-formulaic “story patterns” and exploring the interchangeability of lexical units based on prosodic conditions. The findings support Boas’ claims, indicating, however, significant limitations of the proposed application of the model: lack of tools for addressing 1) contextual means of evocation and 2) oral-formulaic “story patterns” encoded by figurative language. The paper suggests augmenting the FrameNet model with a new relation encodement proposed by Torrent et al. (Torrent, Tiago Timponi, Ely Edison da Silva Matos, Frederico Belcavello, Marcelo Viridiano, Maucha Andrade Gamonal, Alexandre Diniz da Costa & Mateus Coutinho Marim. 2022. Representing context in FrameNet: A multidimensional, multimodal approach. Frontiers in Psychology 13. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.838441 .), and with a record of conceptual blend operations on catalogued frames.