Abstract
As a story progresses, various expressive aspects may change. The aim of this study is to quantitatively characterize story progression in terms of the verbs employed. Specifically, we target Haruki MURAKAMI's "1Q84", with its parallel novel format novel where odd-numbered and even-numbered chapters have different protagonists and stories, and analyze verb occurrences as indices of character behavior. The two sets of chapters were divided into six parts and whole sentences were automatically parsed to identify the action verbs associated with the characters. Statistical analysis revealed five verbs that have systematic tendencies. Within the odd-numbered chapters, interpersonal actions decrease and mental actions increase, while interpersonal actions increase within the even-numbered chapters. The paper argues that shifts in the relative frequencies of certain action verbs are reflected in the contrastive moods of the odd-numbered chapters (from active to still) and even-numbered chapters (from still to active).
