Tools

In the spirit of Hermeneutica, the analysis tools available in the CMCP are meant to encourage scholarly play. That is, although these tools may be used to investigate pre-existing hypotheses, their true value comes to light as scholars explore the text through these tools. This play will result in my research questions, many of which cannot be fully addressed through the tools.

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:

Voyant Tools 1

Voyant Tools, developed by Stéfan Sinclair and Geoffrey Rockwell, is a suite of tools for word-based text analysis. The CMCP uses a modified version of Voyant Tools that removes the full-text view (due to copyright constraints). Still, the word-frequency tools, lexical density statistics, and other analyses can reveal McCarthy’s style.

The following corpora are available for this tool: