Find and extract proper nouns from text

Proper nouns class can find and extract proper nouns from given text using heuristics based on syntactic clues like first letter uppercased, word position in sentence, etc.

It can try to combine proper nouns using conjunctions to find multiple word proper nouns

This class provides customizations so it can be applied to other languages, which grammar uses same heuristics.

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PHP classes - Proper nouns class

Example codes

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<?php
//sample text
$text = "My dear Mr. Bennet, said his lady to him one day,
have you heard that Netherfield Park in London is let at last? 
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
But it is, returned she for Mrs. Long has just been here, 
and she told me and Jane all about it.
Mr. Bennet made no answer. His wife cried impatiently. 
Even the kind Dr. Smith knew better.  Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick
parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, 
that the experience of three-and-twenty years living in England had been insufficient to
make his wife understand his character. 
Her mind, like her sister Lizzy's, was less difficult to develop.";

include("./proper_nouns.php");

//create instance
$pn = new proper_nouns();

//get array with proper nouns
$arr = $pn->get($text);

echo "<pre>";
//output text
echo $text."n";
//print result
print_r($arr);
echo "</pre>";
?>

Examples in action

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Example scripts provided with package in action:

simple_example.php

example.php

Method list

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Constructor
Get proper nouns
Set conjuctions
Set symbol filter
Set symbols that needs to be ignored
Set punctuations
Ignore words from text
Include acronyms
Include possible proper nouns
Generate multiple word proper nouns
Strict search

Constructor

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Method name	new proper_nouns()
Description	Create instance of class

Get proper nouns

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Method name	get($text)
Description	Extract proper nouns from provided text. Returns array of proper nouns found in text
Input parameters	string $text - text from which to extract proper nouns
Example input	get('My name is Arturs Sosins');
Example output	//depends on configuration Array { 0 => Arturs Sosins }

Set conjuctions

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Method name	set_conjunctions($arr, $type = "start")
Description	Provide words that can be used to connect proper nouns, like 'Mr' in 'Mr John Smith' or 'of' in 'Kingdom of Great Britain'
Default values used in class	"start" => array("the", "mr", "mrs", "ms", "dr", "mstr", "miss", "sir") "middle" => array("of", "the", "and") "dot" => array("mr", "mrs", "ms", "dr")
Input parameters	array $arr - array with conjunction words string $type - type of conjunction, right now there are 3 of them: start - words that can appear at the beggining of proper noun like Mr. middle - words that needs to be enclosed by proper nouns, appear between proper nouns, for example - word "of". dot - words that might have dot after them and it won't mean it's an end of a sentence, for example - word "Mr.".
Example input	set_conjunctions(array('mr', 'ms', 'mrs', 'dr'), 'start');

Set symbol filter

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Method name	set_symbols($arr)
Description	Set array of symbols to filter out of text, so only words are left
Default values used in class	'/','',''','"',"'",',','.', '<','>','?',';',':','[',']','{','}', '\|','=','+','-','_',')','(','*','&', '^','%','$','#','@','!','~','`','.', '0','1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9'
Input parameters	array $arr - array with symbols that needs to be filtered

Set symbols that needs to be ignored

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Method name	set_ignore($arr)
Description	Set array of symbols, that might appear between end of one sentence and beggining of another
Default values used in class	" ", "n", "t", "r", "rn"
Input parameters	array $arr - array with symbols that needs to be ignored

Set punctuations

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Method name	set_punctuation($arr)
Description	Set array of symbols, that might appear in the end or beggining of a sentence
Default values used in class	".", "?", "!", "'", '"'
Input parameters	array $arr - array with symbols that may mark end of beggining of sentence

Ignore words from text

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Method name	stop_words($arr)
Description	Set array of words, that will not be included in result
Default values used in class	none
Input parameters	array $arr - array with words that should not be included in result

Include acronyms

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Method name	acronyms($bool)
Description	Include acronyms in found proper nouns array
Default value	true - acronyms are included by default
Input parameters	bool $bool - should acronyms be included

Include possible proper nouns

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Method name	possible($bool)
Description	Include words that could possibly be proper nouns, words thet can not be determined for certain, for example if word only appears in the beggining of the sentence
Default value	false - possible words are not included in result by default
Input parameters	bool $bool - should possible proper nouns be included

Generate multiple word proper nouns

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Method name	multi_words($bool)
Description	Generate multiple word proper nouns using provided conjunctions. Any two proper nouns that are near each other or are in distance of conjunction word will be combined
Default value	true - words are combined to multiple word proper nouns by default
Input parameters	bool $bool - should words be combined to multiple word proper nouns

Strict search

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Method name	strict($bool)
Description	More strict search for proper nouns. For example only words with first uppercase letter in whole text will appear in results
Default value	false - strict mode is not used by default
Input parameters	bool $bool - should strict mode be used