From texts to structured data: Building knowledge graphs through Computer-Assisted Semantic Text Modelling (CASTEMO)
David Zbíral, Robert L. J. Shaw, Petr Hanák, Tomáš Hampejs, and Adam Mertel
This book documents:
- a data collection workflow of Computer-Assisted Semantic Text Modelling (CASTEMO);
- the conceptual as well as technical structure of CASTEMO knowledge graphs;
- the research environment implementing this workflow - InkVisitor (https://inkvisitor.net).
Cite this book:
Zbíral, David, Robert L. J. Shaw, Petr Hanák, Tomáš Hampejs, and Adam Mertel. 2026. From Texts to Structured Data: Building Knowledge Graphs through Computer-Assisted Semantic Text Modelling (CASTEMO). Brno: Masaryk University. https://docs.religionistika.phil.muni.cz/books/from-texts-to-structured-data-building-knowledge-graphs-through-computer-assisted-semantic-text-modelling-castemo.
For any inquiries, contact the corresponding author, David Zbíral, at david.zbiral@mail.muni.cz.
Acknowledgements
The CASTEMO data collection workflow and the InkVisitor research environment were developped by t...
List of abbreviations
Abbreviation Meaning A Action type B Living Being C Concept E Even...
Why knowledge graphs?
Knowledge graphs are flexible data structures which store data as (1) nodes, and (2) ties between...
Should I use InkVisitor?
InkVisitor is excellent when you need to: create and manage entities; build typed relations betw...
Entities
This chapter describes the different entity types of the CASTEMO data model, and their recommende...
Entities overview
CASTEMO recognizes 11 entity types (SPECTRABLOG – Statements, Persons, Events, Concepts, Territor...
Actions
Actions (or more fully, Action types) represent individual semantically disambiguated verbs. They...
Concepts
Concepts represent, alongside Action types, another generic entity type, which holds the data sem...
Attributes of entities
Any entity type has some internal Attributes, which allow to characterize the entity. The InkVisi...
Statements
Structure and purpose Statements model the syntactic structure and semantics of clauses. They hav...
Persons
JSON Structure The general entity attributes are inherited from the base entity object, which is ...
Groups
JSON Structure The general entity attributes are inherited from the base entity object, which is ...
Living Beings
JSON Structure The general entity attributes are inherited from the base entity object, which is ...
Objects
JSON Structure The general entity attributes are inherited from the base entity object, which is ...
Locations
JSON Structure The general entity attributes are inherited from the base entity object, which is ...
Events
JSON Structure The general entity attributes are inherited from the base entity object, which is ...
Territories
JSON Structure The general entity attributes are inherited from the base entity object, which is...
Resources
JSON Structure The general entity attributes are inherited from the base entity object, which is ...
Values
JSON Structure The general entity attributes are inherited from the base entity object, which is ...
Properties
This chapter explains a vital kind of relation in the CASTEMO data model: properties, which serve...
Relations
Some core semantic and ontological relationships between entities are singled out as bespoke Rela...
Relations overview
Some core semantic and ontological relations between entities are highlighted in the CASTEMO dat...
Superclass (SCL)
Definition Superclass (SCL) is a semantic relation which relates a Concept to one or more Concep...
Superordinate Entity (SOE)
Superordinate Entity (SOE) is a Relation which connects a subordinate entity to an entity in whic...
Classification (CLA)
Classification (CLA) is a Relation between a specific PLOGESTRB entity and the class (Concept) to...
Identification (IDE)
Identification (IDE) serves to declare the identity between PLOGESTRB entities, both within an en...
Synonym (SYN)
The CASTEMO data model recommends a strong understanding of synonymy. For two lexemes to be relat...
Antonym (ANT)
The CASTEMO data model recommends a strong understanding of antonymy, i.e. one which to some degr...
Holonym (HOL)
Holonym (HOL) Relation denotes the relation between a Concept representing a part of something to...
Property Reciprocal (PRR)
Property Reciprocal (PRR) is a Relation connecting two Concepts which can feature as a Property T...
Action/Event Equivalent (AEE)
Description and roles The Action/Event Equivalent Relation (AEE) connects always one Action to on...
Implication
Implication (IMP) is a Relation which connects an Action to one or more other Actions. It denotes...
Subject/Actant1 Reciprocal (SAR)
The Subject/Actant1 Reciprocal (SAR) Relation relates two Actions. It is a type of Implication, b...
Actant semantics: Subject Semantics (SUS), Actant 1 Semantics (A1S), and Actant 2 Semantics (A2S)
Description Subject Semantics (SUS), Actant 1 Semantics (A1S), and Actant 2 Semantics (A2S) are R...
Related (REL)
Related (REL) is the least specific Relation which allows to relate entities of any type by way o...
References
Corpus in InkVisitor: Managing textual data and representing them in the CASTEMO ontology
The Annotator component of InkVisitor allows you to perform various operations with full-texts. ...
Corpus in the CASTEMO workflow
Constituting a corpus of full texts is a natural component of the CASTEMO workflow. Full-texts ar...
General principles of corpus management
Where to maintain my corpus? And how to keep track of versions? Generally, a corpus is better ma...
Clean optically recognized texts
General information In this manual, we count on the availability of edited text of a source, whe...
Represent textual versions
Basics The full text you plan to annotate has its often quite complex history of versions. At...
Import a full-text document and start annotating
Before starting to annotate, you need to import a full text in InkVisitor, create a Resource repr...
Annotate texts with Annotator
Annotator is a component of the InkVisitor software adapted to the annotation of full-texts. Unli...
Search and replace strings in full-text documents
The Annotator component in InkVisitor has in-built functionalities for: searching text; repla...
Add anchors using search
Adding anchor to one search hit In the highlight mode, it also allows you to add anchor to the s...
Decide on the focus and extent of annotation
Any semantic annotation, as comprehensive as it might be, always has a purpose, that is, is conne...
Collect data in InkVisitor
Describe your data collection choices
Every data collection campaign, even the most comprehensive CASTEMO annotation, necessarily makes...
Statements: entities with Action as their core
Action is the core of any Statement. Actions as entities (Action types) are treated in the Entiti...
Actants
Maximize coreference Coreference resolution — identifying that different expressions, or absent e...
Time
Attribute of events, not people or objects directly Time belongs under Events, not directly under...
Location
Attribute of events or actions, not people or objects While the CASTEMO ontology technically allo...
"Same as above": Referencing information content in CASTEMO knowledge graphs
Referring to the content of another statement Basic logic Statements often make references to oth...
Territories and their relation to Resources
Query, explore, review, and export data
This chapter describes the Explorer section of InkVisitor, which provides a powerful capacities f...
Query CASTEMO knowledge graphs
Now, time to get knowledge out of the knowledge graphs. This chapter categorizes some useful quer...
Finding inconsistent and invalid data
This is the collapsible text. For various reasons, such as data import or bugs of some version o...
Querying CASTEMO knowledge graphs in Neo4j
Querying with relations
Get data of trial events and their participants (DISSINET-specific)
How to match the person physically at trial (in a deposition, deponent)? In DISSINET data, the...
Querying with counting
Find Actions used in more than 20 statements MATCH (s:Statement)-[:HAS_ACTION]-(a:Action) WITH a,...
Data import to InkVisitor
InkVisitor installation on a server
This chapter is intended for your IT support. It describes how to deploy the InkVisitor applicati...