Named entity search

TCSE supports searching for named entities recognized by spaCy's NER (Named Entity Recognition) system. Use the %ENTITY notation in advanced search mode to find specific types of named entities in TED Talk transcripts. Multi-token entities (e.g. "New York", "United Nations") are matched as a single unit.

How to use

1. Enter a query using the %ENTITY notation (e.g., %PERSON said)
2. Check Advanced Search
3. Click SEARCH

NER patterns in N-gram mode

You can also search for NER patterns in the N-gram mode. For example, searching %PERSON in 1-gram mode shows the total frequency of person entities across the corpus. Searching in 2-gram or higher modes reveals common patterns involving named entities (e.g., %PERSON said, in %GPE). Clicking on an N-gram result will automatically open the corresponding advanced search.

Entity types

TCSE recognizes 18 named entity types:

Entity Type	Description	Count in Corpus
%CARDINAL	Numerals that do not fall under another type	73,912
%DATE	Absolute or relative dates or periods	72,487
%PERSON	People, including fictional	59,525
%GPE	Countries, cities, states	48,806
%ORG	Companies, agencies, institutions, etc.	47,748
%ORDINAL	"first", "second", etc.	21,850
%NORP	Nationalities or religious or political groups	21,830
%LOC	Non-GPE locations, mountain ranges, bodies of water	14,512
%TIME	Times smaller than a day	9,389
%PERCENT	Percentage, including "%"	8,184
%QUANTITY	Measurements, as of weight or distance	6,854
%WORK_OF_ART	Titles of books, songs, etc.	6,046
%MONEY	Monetary values, including unit	5,108
%PRODUCT	Objects, vehicles, foods, etc. (not services)	3,470
%FAC	Buildings, airports, highways, bridges, etc.	2,649
%EVENT	Named hurricanes, battles, wars, sports events, etc.	2,165
%LANGUAGE	Any named language	1,557
%LAW	Named documents made into laws	758

Examples

Query	What it finds
%PERSON	All person names
%PERSON said	Person names followed by "said"
in %GPE	"in" followed by a country/city name
%MONEY	All monetary expressions
%DATE	All date expressions
%ORG [be]	Organization names followed by forms of "be"