The problem solved by this system is to subject a literary work (in this case, books from the Bible) to basic discourse analysis. Since discourse analysis provides the spine of the system's core structure and logic, a summary description of the concepts involved in discourse analysis will be presented here. In general, discourse analysis is the process by which a literary body or sequence of messages are split into clauses. Clauses are the most basic, atomic unit of meaning in the communication of ideas. Discourse analysis seeks to show the relationship between clauses and the meanings conveyed in them. The words or sequences of words that join the clauses are referred to as conjunctions. Although, in some cases, implied conjunctions may be inserted between clauses where there was originally no words. The form of discourse analysis used in this system focuses on generating an outline reflecting the contents of the source document. This approach is based on the idea that any meaningful discourse can be synonymously represented in outline form, possibly the outline that the original author used in the writing of the discourse being examined. This system also takes advantage of the notion that any well-formed outline has a one-to-one mapping to a tree diagram that conveys the same information. Using these concepts, we developed a system that satisfies the client's specifications. This system takes advantage of discourse analysis to parse and split sentences (again, verses from books of the Bible) into clauses and generate a tree diagram of all the contained clauses. This tree diagram may then be utilized by users of the system to summarize and condense several related clauses into a user-derived clause that still conveys most of the meaning of the original constituent clauses. In this manner, entire sections of the source document may be condensed into summary statements that preserve most of the original meaning. The most practical application of this system is as a reference tool, helping a user to organize and better understand meanings conveyed in the Bible.
The purpose of this project was to create a website that allows users to select or upload a “conjunction list” file or and upload a formatted or unformatted text file, parse the text, open it in graphical view for editing, and finally save the edited data as an XML file. Our task for this semester was to improve upon last semester’s progress. The following document outlines the changes we made as well as improvements that should be made in the future.
Additional information provided in the project documentation.