Query builder presents a query creation form as a tabled view of a tree sourced from the tree that was in the display when this page was accessed. The tabled view can be manipulated to create a query using relations applied to elements in the tree. A query specifying positive values for full information for each element in the tree will yield a search result with just one entry: the tree itself. The tabled view initially opened by Query builder is completely unspecified by default, and will generate a query that yields the empty search pattern (which will find every tree node of the corpus). A query that specifies only wild cards (“__”) will yield every tree in the corpus that supports the tree structure of the resulting query.
With a little adjustment, you can see that the table represents a tree. A block with a node label and a drop-down list is a node in the tree. A node dominates everything in the column beneath it. For any sequence of one or more blank blocks adjacent to and to the right of a node A, each block in the sequence indicates that everything in the column below that block is dominated by node A. The root node dominates everything else, and the leaves dominate nothing. Nodes along the same row are all at the same structural depth. Non-terminal nodes adjacent to one another or connected by blank blocks are sisters. Precedence is read left to right.
Each node in the tree consists of a sequence of blocks where the first has a drop-down list that is used to specify relations applied to elements in the tree. By choosing a value from the drop-down list you can specify whether the label for that node is to be included or excluded from the conditions of a query. You can choose the full tag, the base form of the tag, or just the extension of the tag. To de-select a value, click the blank space closest to the node label.
By default, a drop down list is set to not contribute to the query. The full range of other options are as follows:
Each terminal node is given as a box with a drop down list that is unselected by default, as well as having the following other options:
You can build queries by selecting tree nodes with the pull down lists and pressing the “Construct query” button. After the “Construct query” button is pressed, nodes, words and the relations between them are transformed into a query. The language of the query can be selected to be either a bracket tree query, a TGrep-lite expression, or an XPath expression. The constructed query is visualised as a tree fragment. An open entry box with the content of the query enables post-editing the query. A click of the “Submit” button queries the corpus.