[jquery] jQuery.each - Getting li elements inside an ul

First I think you need to fix your lists, as the first node of a <ul> must be a <li> (stackoverflow ref). Once that is setup you can do this:

// note this array has outer scope
var phrases = [];

$('.phrase').each(function(){
        // this is inner scope, in reference to the .phrase element
        var phrase = '';
        $(this).find('li').each(function(){
            // cache jquery var
            var current = $(this);
            // check if our current li has children (sub elements)
            // if it does, skip it
            // ps, you can work with this by seeing if the first child
            // is a UL with blank inside and odd your custom BLANK text
            if(current.children().size() > 0) {return true;}
            // add current text to our current phrase
            phrase += current.text();
        });
        // now that our current phrase is completely build we add it to our outer array
        phrases.push(phrase);
    });
    // note the comma in the alert shows separate phrases
    alert(phrases);

Working jsfiddle.

One thing is if you get the .text() of an upper level li you will get all sub level text with it.

Keeping an array will allow for many multiple phrases to be extracted.

EDIT:

This should work better with an empty UL with no LI:

// outer scope
var phrases = [];

$('.phrase').each(function(){
    // inner scope
    var phrase = '';
    $(this).find('li').each(function(){
        // cache jquery object
        var current = $(this);
        // check for sub levels
        if(current.children().size() > 0) {
            // check is sublevel is just empty UL
            var emptyULtest = current.children().eq(0); 
            if(emptyULtest.is('ul') && $.trim(emptyULtest.text())==""){
                phrase += ' -BLANK- '; //custom blank text
                return true;   
            } else {
             // else it is an actual sublevel with li's
             return true;   
            }
        }
        // if it gets to here it is actual li
        phrase += current.text();
    });
    phrases.push(phrase);
});
// note the comma to separate multiple phrases
alert(phrases);