RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 Welbers, Kasper A1 van Atteveldt, Wouter A1 Kleinnijenhuis, JanYR 2021 T1 Extracting semantic relations using syntax JF Computational Communication Research, VO 3 IS 2 SP 1 OP 16 DO https://doi.org/10.5117/CCR2021.2.003.WELB PB Amsterdam University Press, SN 2665-9085, AB Abstract Most common methods for automatic text analysis in communication science ignore syntactic information, focusing on the occurrence and co-occurrence of individual words, and sometimes n-grams. This is remarkably effective for some purposes, but poses a limitation for fine-grained analyses into semantic relations such as who does what to whom and according to what source. One tested, effective method for moving beyond this bag-of-words assumption is to use a rule-based approach for labeling and extracting syntactic patterns in dependency trees. Although this method can be used for a variety of purposes, its application is hindered by the lack of dedicated and accessible tools. In this paper we introduce the rsyntax R package, which is designed to make working with dependency trees easier and more intuitive for R users, and provides a framework for combining multiple rules for reliably extracting useful semantic relations., UL https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/CCR2021.2.003.WELB