1. A method for frame-based search, performed by computing hardware and programmable memory, comprising the following steps: receiving a first rule, for producing an instance in accordance with a first frame, wherein the first frame comprises a first input role and a first output role; receiving a second rule, for producing an instance in accordance with a second frame, wherein the second frame comprises a second input role and a second output role; receiving a first source corpus; identifying first and second units of natural language from, respectively, first and second snippets of the first source corpus; producing a first instance, from the first unit, by application of the first rule, wherein the first instance has a first input value assigned to its first input role and a first output value assigned to its first output role; producing a second instance, from the second unit, by application of the second rule, wherein the second instance has a second input value assigned to its second input role and a second output value assigned to its second output role; determining the first and second instances represent a same third frame; determining a same third value as representative of the first and second input values; determining a same fourth value as representative of the first and second output values; producing, as a result of computing hardware and programmable memory, a first result that contains a first result-value and a first result-base, wherein the first result-value is the fourth value and the first result-base contains the first and second snippets; determining, as a result of computing hardware and programmable memory, a member-level demographic characteristic for each member of the first result-base; determining, as a result of computing hardware and programmable memory, a first demographic characteristic, for the first result, by combining the member- level demographic characteristics; and displaying, to a user as part of a search result, the first demographic characteristic as a demographic determined for the first result-value.
1. A method for frame-based search, performed by computing hardware and programmable memory, comprising the following steps: receiving a first rule, for producing an instance in accordance with a first frame, wherein the first frame comprises a first input role and a first output role; receiving a second rule, for producing an instance in accordance with a second frame, wherein the second frame comprises a second input role and a second output role; receiving a first source corpus; identifying first and second units of natural language from, respectively, first and second snippets of the first source corpus; producing a first instance, from the first unit, by application of the first rule, wherein the first instance has a first input value assigned to its first input role and a first output value assigned to its first output role; producing a second instance, from the second unit, by application of the second rule, wherein the second instance has a second input value assigned to its second input role and a second output value assigned to its second output role; determining the first and second instances represent a same third frame; determining a same third value as representative of the first and second input values; determining a same fourth value as representative of the first and second output values; producing, as a result of computing hardware and programmable memory, a first result that contains a first result-value and a first result-base, wherein the first result-value is the fourth value and the first result-base contains the first and second snippets; determining, as a result of computing hardware and programmable memory, a member-level demographic characteristic for each member of the first result-base; determining, as a result of computing hardware and programmable memory, a first demographic characteristic, for the first result, by combining the member- level demographic characteristics; and displaying, to a user as part of a search result, the first demographic characteristic as a demographic determined for the first result-value. 9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the steps of determining a member-level demographic characteristic and determining a first demographic characteristic further comprise: assigning each member, of the first result-base, a confidence distribution, wherein a plurality of values are assigned, each with a confidence level; and combining the confidence distributions.