(PhD Researcher Will Jones) I have an idea for a potentially useful tool/application for linguistic analysis, but could it feasibly be acheived using MATLAB GUI?

Hi Everyone, I am looking for some feedback on an idea I have had, specifically, is it feasible? A GUI that loads a text file, loads a list of user defined linguistic variables (verbs, nouns etc.), allows the user to attribute one of these linguistic variables to specific aspects of the text, counts the amount of variable allocations, and outputs the data to an excel file.

I'll flesh this out with an example. Imagine I upload a text file that says: 'I am typing', then I select a list of linguistic variables I am interested in (e.g. pronouns and verbs) and upload them to the GUI. Now I want to annotate the text, so I highlight 'I' and classify this as a pronoun, then I highlight 'typing' and classify this as a verb. I want the frequency of variable selections to be recorded and output to excel, so that excel would present something like: pronouns = 1, and verbs = 1.

I would be willing to collaborate on this idea, could be lucrative in certain research fields.

Answer 1

[Jan]

What exactly is your question?

 could it feasibly be acheived using MATLAB GUI?

Yes, this is possible.

[William Jones]

Hi Jan,

Thanks for the reply.

Well, I am fairly comfortable with MATLAB in general, but I have never created a application/GUI before. Now I know that it is feasible, I shall invest some more time in thinking about this. What I imagine will be the most complicated aspect will be the actual annotation process: attributing linguistic variables to specific items of the uploaded text, storing the frequency of variable selections, and outputting to excel. At present, I do not have a specific question on these, though I would be overjoyed if you could signpost me in the general direction regards these functions. Or perhaps I should re-post when I have a more specific question?

[Jan]

Specific questions are easier to answer.

I like Matt's GUI examples: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/24861-41-complete-gui-examples