McK: ontology for mapping semantic conflict in plot summary

This article investigates the use of a neurosymbolic approach in the analysis of conflict within narrative discourse.Due to the difficulty of providing a precise conceptual definition, abstract elements such as conflict prove to be hard to analyze through computational systems.The retrieval of a neurosymbolic approach, through the combination of knowledge graphs and LLMs, can open new perspectives for the analysis of abstract elements typical of narrative discourse at the level of plot summary.Starting from the schematization of conflict elaborated by Robert McKee, an ontology was constructed and subsequently populated with the entities present in the screenplay of the film A Clockwork Orange.Afterwards, through experimental validation, the approach was tested by means of a prompt injection of the ontology into the request.Through a comparative-qualitative approach, the experimentation considered the analysis of the narrative discourse first by combining synopsis 1 and knowledge graph, and then relying only on the synopsis.In conclusion, the potentialities of the neurosymbolic approach are presented with regard to screenplay analysis, opening up the possibilities of the approach to a larger portion of text, such as the screenplay. Plain Language SummaryThis study investigates a possibility for analyzing conflict within narrative discourse.Due to the issues identified in the field of computational narratology and in the analysis of screenplays, computational systems encounter difficulties in the investigation of abstract elements such as conflict, which even humans struggle to define.Starting from a neurosymbolic approach, the intention is to enhance the process of conflict analysis within narrative discourse by means of a schematization of it.Indeed, in order to allow a better grasp of the screenplay, it is necessary to define detailed and dynamic models suitable for computational processing, so as to provide a schematization of conflict useful as an intermediate representation in the process.The theoretical model, necessary for the schematization of conflict, is inspired by Robert McKee and his definition of conflict formulated in 1997, in the context of screenwriting.Consequently, the research offers a concrete possibility for analyzing narrative themes within film screenplays, enabling a better positioning already from the earliest stages of the cinematic production chain.