Question

Write a program using regular expressions to extract as many of the surnames as you can from the story in in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and compute a frequency table with how many times each one occurs. To complete this part of the assignment, turn in your program's source code, your frequency table, and a paragraph describing your approach to solving this problem.

In Python Language

Answer 1

The above problem can be solved as follows using the mentioned steps-

STEP 1- We will first construct the regex to find all names in string using the assumption that names are written in a particular fashion. That fashion is two words with both beginning with Capital letter and rest letters are small. Also, there is space between first name and last name. Also, names always have white spaces left and right of them.

So the regex is,

regex = "\b([A-Z][a-z]+) ([A-Z][a-z]+)\b"

\b used to suggest that names have trailing and leading white spaces.

then two parts, each having first letter as [A-Z] and rest as [a-z]. Small letters can be 1 or more. '+' sign signifies 1 or more.

Space is there between both parts to suggest first name and surname have space between them.

STEP 2- The regex will return an array of names in the form of [(first name),(surname)]. From this, we will extract the surnames.

STEP 3- We will make a dictionary that stores all the surnames. While iterating over all names, if surnames comes for first time, we will store it in dictionary and give it value 1. If the surname is repeated, then we will increment the value by 1.

STEP 4- Print the dictionary of surnames that have surname and their occurrence count.

Python Code-

import re
#stored a paragraph of Pride and Prejudice
#for example purpose
prideAndPrejudiceParagraph = '''Thee ladies of Longbourn soon waited on those of Netherfield.
The visit was soon returned in due form. Miss Bennet’s pleasing manners grew on the goodwill
of Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley; and though the mother was found to be intolerable,
and the younger sisters not worth speaking to, a wish of being better acquainted with them was
expressed towards the two eldest. By Jane, this attention was received with the greatest pleasure,
but Elizabeth still saw superciliousness in their treatment of everybody, hardly excepting even her sister,
and could not like them; though their kindness to Jane, such as it was, had a value as arising in all
probability from the influence of their brother’s admiration. It was generally evident whenever they met,
that he did admire her and to her it was equally evident that Jane was yielding to the preference which
she had begun to entertain for him from the first, and was in a way to be very much in love; but she
considered with pleasure that it was not likely to be discovered by the world in general, since Jane united,
with great strength of feeling, a composure of temper and a uniform cheerfulness of manner which would guard
her from the suspicions of the impertinent. She mentioned this to her friend Miss Lucas.
Occupied in observing Mr Bingley attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that
she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first
scarcely allowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the ball;
and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise.'''

#regex to find out names in the string
names = re.findall(r"\b([A-Z][a-z]+) ([A-Z][a-z]+)\b",prideAndPrejudiceParagraph);

#declared a dictionary to store surnames
surnames = {}
#iterate over names
for i in range(len(names)):
#store surname of the name in a variable
val = names[i][1]
#print the surname
print(val)
#if surname exists already in dictionary
#just increment its value
if val in surnames:
surnames[val] = surnames[val] + 1
#else, initialize its value to 1
else:
surnames[val] = 1
print(surnames)

For better understanding of code indentation and comments, here is the image of code snippet-

OUTPUT sample is as in the image below-

If this answer helps, please give an up vote. Feel free to ask any query in comments.