Text analysis from the point of view of text grammars
| There are some news (September 7th, 2026): Some months before we mentioned that there was a new semantic tagger that would replace the one implemented here in Text·a·gram. Well, it turns out that we have yet another one, now called ``Wikacho'' (with a k). This new device combines the previous two and is therefore based on both Wiktionary and Wikipedia. We will soon integrate this tagger here, but in the meantime, but if you want to check it out visit its own website: http://www.tecling.com/wikacho. Right now it only works with texts in Spanish, though. The English version is still in preparation. |
ANALYSIS OF MODALIZATION
This function is at the moment only available in Spanish.
The modalization tagger is a tool that allows you to find, classify and tag modalizers, which are defined as textual markers that represent the act of modalization in a given text. These tags are differentiated by colour, visual markers such as underlining and blackening of the word, and their respective categorization in brackets to the right of the modalizer found.
Modalization
Modalization is the attitude or position of the speaker with regard to their own utterance (Kalinowski, 1976; Lozano, Peña-Marín and Abril, 1989; Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1997; Otaola, 1998; Calsamiglia and Tusón, 1999), that is, a judgement made by the senders about their perception, leaving this opinion materialized in the utterance.
Speakers have the ability to choose various linguistic elements to express the relationship they have with their utterance, with their actions, with their interlocutors and with the object to which they refer; in addition, they will also seek to express their states or attitudes with respect to what is being said at the moment (e.g., their knowledge, doubts, intentions, etc.).
We can divide every statement into the planes of dictum and modus, where the former would be the propositional content and the latter the way in which this proposition is commented on. The speaker uses modalization based on the selection of specific language units, which will reflect their opinion on a real or imaginary referential object. This makes a discourse more “objective”, closer to the elimination of personal traces, or more “subjective”, presenting these marks explicitly or implicitly.
Given that no existing expression is completely objective, since there would be no zero modalization, modalizers are understood as the linguistic elements that the speaker uses to demonstrate their personal subjectivity; therefore, their use will be directly linked to their knowledge, beliefs, desires, demands, and points of view.
Classification
The number of modalizers and their categories is undetermined, as they have not been fully inventoried or classified. The labels used to classify modalizers were chosen from the names given to them in disciplinary studies of the Spanish language. There are six classifications:
The taxonomy seeks to be as exhaustive as possible, so it indicates both negative and positive forms, with or without the presence of pronouns and prepositions, in addition to the adverbial transformations that some expressions tend to have.
References
Calsamiglia, H. & Tusón, A. (1999). Las cosas del decir. Barcelona: Editorial Ariel.
Kalinowski, G. (1976). Un aperçu élémentaire des modalités déontiques. Langages, 10ᵉ année, n°43. Modalités : logique, linguistique, sémiotique. pp. 10-18.
Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (1997). La enunciación de la subjetividad en el lenguaje. Buenos Aires: Edicial.
Lozano, J., Peña-Marín, C. & Abril, G. (1989). Análisis del discurso: Hacia una semiótica de la interacción textual. Madrid: Cátedra.
Otaola, C. (1988). La modalidad (con especial referencia a la lengua española). Revista de Filología Española, 68 (1/2), 97-117.
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This is another project by Tecling.com
Publications
About the semantic tagger
The version of the semantic tagger currently implemented in
Text·a·gram is the first one, called Tatatag, from 2025, which is the tagger based on Wiktionary. This version is described on the following paper:
• Nazar, R. (2026). Semantic Typing for Corpus Pattern Analysis. International Journal of Lexicography, vol. 39, 2026, ecag012.
Later (2026), we developed Wicacho, a new version of the tagger that uses Wikipedia (http://www.tecling.com/wicacho). This sencond version is described in another paper:
• Nazar, R.; Renau, I. (2026). Wikipedia used as a semantic tagger: some preliminary results in Spanish. Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural, n. 76, p. 279-292.
Now (September 7, 2026) we have a third version (Wikacho: http://www.tecling.es/wikacho) that combines both approaches integrating Wiktionary and Wikipedia. No paper has been published about it yet, but we are preparing some documentation on the website.
Publications about the rest of the functions in Text·a·gram
• Nazar, R. (2024). Statistical modeling of discourse genres: the case of the opinion column in Spanish. SN Computer Science 5(959):1-11.
• Nazar, R.; Renau, I.; Robledo, H. (2024). Dismark and Text·a·Gram: Automatic identification and categorization of discourse markers in texts. In: Cecilia-Mihaela Popescu & Oana-Adriana Dut,ă (eds.), Discourse Markers in Romance Languages. Crosslinguistic Approaches in Romance and Beyond. Berlin: Peter Lang.
Concept and development: Rogelio Nazar
Collaborators: Javier Obreque, Diego Sánchez, Hernán Robledo, Paolo Caballería, Nicolás Acosta, Scarlette Gatica, Andrea Alcaíno, Ignacio Lobos and Irene Renau.
Documentation: Andrea Alcaíno & Rogelio Nazar