A Basic Study for Using Folk Tale’s Motifs to Narrative Generation

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to use the folk tale’s motif in narrative generation. A motif is a unit including a major act made by a major character composing it and an action corresponding to it in a certain folk tale. We have developed a motif program for these purposes. This program is based on the folk tale recorded in “Nihon Mukashibanashi Taisei”. The motif program has a tree structure data based on the structure of the original folk tale and a mechanism to convert the tree structure data into a narrative tree that uses it in narrative generation. With the above developments it became possible to create a story using the folk tale’s motif.