Text body processing

Once these two tasks are accomplished, the actual text of the story can be read. An important task at this stage is to identify the characters. Character identification can occur in a number of ways. First, if the scenario comprehension supertask has discovered an agent, there is a good chance that it will also be a character. Second, persons appearing in the story and performing actions in the story can be characters. Third, objects which are creatively acting as agents can also be characters. Notice that characters are not equivalent to the subject of various sentences within the story; these may be pronouns, which are not characters, merely character references. In Squire, there are several characters, even in this short of a narrative. Both Kirk and Trelane are characters; as as Trelane's parents and the crew. The Enterprise is not identified as a character as it does not have agent qualities and does not act in an agent-ful manner.

After basic character identification is accomplished, it is necessary to perform protagonist and antagonist identification. At the simplest level, the protagonist is the character who the story concerns and is who the reader sympathizes with. In computational terms, the protagonist can be discovered by identifying the character taking part in the largest number of actions. This fact can be discovered by appealing to the scenario comprehension supertask. The antagonist will be the character who opposed the protagonist, if one exists. Again, this information can be discovered by requesting the information from scenario comprehension. There is no restriction that a story contain only a single antagonist.

A story contains more than simply characters, of course. The characters exist in a particular setting, consisting of a location and a time frame. Setting identification attempts to discover this information, as well as tracking when (and why) it changes. A science-fiction story, for example, may begin on Earth in the twenty-third century and end on a distant planet in the fiftieth century. Looking for explicit locations in the story is one good way to discover the setting; this works for Squire at a number of levels. Gothos is the planet where the action of the story is taking place, but we also know where the planet is located in relation to other points the world of Star Trek.

Finally, the characters are not static objects within a story; they participate in the plot. The plot identification task has the goal of identifying the set of actions which the characters participate in, as well as how these are related. For this task, story structure comprehension can appeal to the scenario comprehension supertask (see Section 5.3.3).

As knowledge is collected concerning the story structure, it will also become possible for the task of genre identification to occur. For example, if a story is being read whose characters include Captain Kirk and Sulu, a science fiction story may be assumed (or, more specifically, a Star Trek science fiction story). This is the case with Squire as the inclusion of Kirk and the Enterprise correctly identifies the synopsis as a Star Trek tale. By knowing the kinds of elements which various genres contain, this task can identify what sorts of stories the reader is dealing with. Once the identification is made, the predictions which it allows will act to support the rest of the reading experience.