Sentence Structure Search (Experimental)

Rather than search the corpus for specific words, the Sentence Structure Search allows users to search for types of words. Users drag and drop tiles representing parts of speech to create a search sequence. The Search reports the percentage of sentences in each McCarthy novel that contain that sequence and provides five example sentences randomly selected from the text.

Note that this tool is experimental. The parts of speech have been determined by the Stanford Part of Speech Tagger, which is not perfect. For example, many characters in McCarthy’s novels will drop the subject in sentences such as “Looks like rain.” The Part of Speech Tagger erroneously tags “Looks” as a noun-plural.

The following corpora are available for this tool:

• All Novels 1.0 Details