Exploring The Betrothed Lovers

ANDREA  BOLIOLI  –  CROSS  LIBRARY  SRL  MATTEO  CASU  –  CELI  SRL  

MAURIZIO  LANA  -­‐  UNIVERSITÀ  DEGLI  STUDI  DEL  PIEMONTE  ORIENTALE  

RENATO  RODA  –  UNIVERSITÀ  DI  TORINO  

Sèduco   (Sharing   EDUcaDonal   COntent)   aims   to   study,   develop  and  test  digital  tools  for  the  creaDon,  management  and  sharing  of   educaDonal   contents   in   the   italian   upper   secondary   school  (age  14  to  18).    

The  Promessi  Sposi  App  in  the  context  of  Sèduco  

CELI  srl  –  Turin,  Italy  

Cross  Library  srl  –  Trento,  Italy  spinoff  Celi/FBK  (Bruno  Kessler  FoundaDon)  

•  Educa,onal  objec,ve:  classics  are  perceived  as  boring!  –  and  o[en  they  are  not  …  

•  Business  objec,ve:  going  beyond  the  concept  of  e-­‐book  

Provide  an  applicaDon  for:  •  The  explora,on  of  rich  contents  •  The  discovery  of  hidden  informaDon  

Apply  semanDcs  and  SNA    to  a  classic  Why?  

How?  

Divise  an  architecture  to  make  it  repeatable  with  low  costs  

With  a  constraint  

•  “I  Promessi   Sposi”   (1827)   is   a   classic  of   italian   literature  by  Alessandro  Manzoni   (1785  –   1873)   –   historical   novel   set   in  1628,   during   the   Spanish   dominaDon   (parallel   to   Austrian  dominaDon  during  Manzoni’s  Dme)  

•  Historical  novel  represenDng  the  cultural  and  linguisDc  unity  of  Italy  

•  It   is   studied   (mandatory)   in   the   second  year  of   italian  high  schools  

What  The Betrothed    is  

Curiosi,es  •  The   translaDon   of   the   Dtle   in   “The   Betrothed   Lovers”   comes  from  the  first  review  by  E.A.Poe  (1835)  

•  I  Promessi  Sposi  was  inspired  by  Scok’s  Ivanhoe  (1819)    

The Betrothed    as  a  semanDc  mashup  

•  segmentaDon  at  the  level  of  paragraphs  (indexed  in  the  Celi  semanDc  search  engine)  

•  annotaDon   of   the   novel   for   enDty   menDons   (persons   and  locaDons,  automated  task)  and  narraDve  sequences  (unit  of  Dme/place/acDon,  manual  task)  

•  two   NER   tools   -­‐-­‐   TextPro   by   FBK   and   Sophia   Seman,c  Engine  by  CELI  

•  the  automaDc  annotaDon  was  manually  corrected  

CreaDon  of  the  applicaDon  

•  During   the   creaDon   of   I   Promessi   Sposi   we   learned   some  lessons…  

Structural  annota,ons:   XML-­‐based   -­‐-­‐   there  are   limits   (e.g.  non-­‐overlapping  annotaDons)  Named-­‐en,,es   annota,ons:   poor   -­‐-­‐   only   recently   TEI  introduced  the  use  of  keys  Indexing:  choose  a  level  of  granularity  (paragraphs)  

Architecture  

We  want  the  architecture  to  be  reusable  for  any  novel:  •  arbitrary   annotaDon/segmentaDon   of   porDons   of   text  

(chapters,  sequences,  dialogue  lines,  “like”  …  )  •  Link  text  annotaDons  with  externally-­‐defined  enDDes  •  The  index  does  not  mirror  a  parDcular  annotaDon    

Generaliza,on  

Tradi,onal  methodology  

Architecture  

Ontological  Model  

We   reused   Linked   Open   Vocabularies   (foaf,   geoNames   ontology,  SPAR  ontologies).  

•  FRBR’s  disDncDon  between  a  Work,   its  Expressions  (different  revisions)  and  its  ManifestaDons  (ediDons)  to  enable  cross-­‐ediDon  analyDcs  

•  Discourse  elements  (chapters,  paragraphs)  are  fixed  (by  the  author)  •  Sequences:   narraDve   (incl.   dialogues   and   monologues),   descripDve   or  

reflexive   -­‐   in  many-­‐to-­‐many   relaDon  with   paragraphs.   NarraDve   sequences  are  linked  to  characters  which  act  in  them,  and  to  speakers  

•  Characters   are   persons   or   groups   ,   with   links   between   groups   and   their  members  –  are  actors  or  speakers   in  sequences.  The  noDon  of  character   is  not  a  class,  but  a  role  played  by  an  Agent  in  a  Work.  

•  Loca,ons:   can   be   municipaliDes   (such   as   Milan,   Lecco),   relaDve   locaDons  (e.g.   Lucia’s   house),   indefinite   locaDons   ("near   Lecco”),   journeys   -­‐-­‐   change  status   over   ,me   (e.g.   the   home   of   Lucia   was   in   Acquate,   formerly   a  municipality,  now  a  neighboroud  in  Lecco)  

•  Contribu,ons  (images,  web  documents)  can  be  added  by  students  –  they  can  be  linked  to  any  enDty  in  the  model.  

Learning  and  Social  Aspects  

 •  Students   and   teachers   contributed   in   the   creaDon  

process:  •  Searching  for  images  •  SegmentaDon  in  narraDve  sequences  •  Research  on  different  maps  for  the  visualizaDon  of  

the  locaDons  in  different  Dmes  •  And  in  its  maintaining:  •  contribute   with   images,   works   about   characters,  

etc.  

Social  Network  AnalyDcs  

 1.  ConversaDonal  network  •  Nodes  and  edges  are  weighted:  weight  =  number  

of  dialogues  in  which  the  characters  are  involved  2.  NarraDve  network  •  Edges   idenDfy   co-­‐occurrence   of   characters   in   the  

same  narra,ve  sequence  

Extrac,on  of  two  interac,onal  networks  

Detail:  NarraDve  Sequences  

Detail:  Characters  

Detail:  LocaDons  

Detail:  CollocaDons  

Detail:  ConversaDonal  Network  

•  Renzo  is  central  w.r.t.  dialogue  interacDons.  

•  Clusters  emerge:  heroes  /  villains  /supporDng  characters  

Detail:  NarraDve  Network  

•  Lucia  is  a  more  acDon-­‐oriented  figure  

•  Again,  clusters  emerge  

Next  Steps  

•  We  are  enhancing  the  search  experience  of  I  Promessi  Sposi   with   structure   expected   by   our   model   (e.g.  locaDons  hierarchy)  

•  We   are   applying   the   process   from   scratch   to   new  novels  

•  Next?  Ø Unleash   sem   web   techniques:   use   a   triple   store  

with   inference   enabled,   link   enDDes   to   the   LOD  cloud  …  

I  Promessi  Sposi  was  born  together  with  the  design  and  refinement  of  the  architecture  

Thank  you