This code sample is adapted from Clifford B. Anderson and Joseph C. Wicentowski, XQuery for Humanists (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2020), 229. Download this code sample in its raw form. View the source on GitHub.

xquery version "3.1";

declare variable $text := "Among other public buildings in a certain town,
    which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from
    mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name,
    there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small:
    to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day
    and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch
    as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this
    stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality
    whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.";

let $pattern := "[,:;] "
let $phrases := fn:tokenize($text, $pattern)
return
    fn:analyze-string($text, $pattern)