Five very useful and free online corpus sites are these:
- BYU-BNC (Brigham Young University-British National Corpus)
- BYU-COCA (Brigham Young University-Corpus of Contemporary American English)
- BYU-Wikipedia Corpus
- MICASE (Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English)
- MICUSP (Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers)
As an example of how to get started using an online corpus, we will look at the BYU-BNC web site and how to use it to determine which prepositions typically follow the verb "rely."
When you first enter the COCA web site, you will see that the left-hand panel looks like this:
To change this to examine the prepositions that follow the verb "rely" in frequency order, make the following changes:
- In the "WORD(S)" field, enter "rely.[v*]" without the quotation marks
- In the "COLLOCATES" field, enter "[ii*] without the quotation marks
- Change the dropdown boxes to read "0" and "1" respectively.
Once the changes above are made, click the "SEARCH" button, and the results below will be displayed. (Note that the results may be slightly different when you run this, as new data may have been entered since the time I wrote this entry.)
This shows that the most common preposition to follow the verb "rely" is "on," with a frequency of 1807 out of a total of 2072 entries. The second most common preposition to follow "rely" is "upon" with 229 uses out of a total of 2072.
Perhaps the most difficult thing about using the BYU corpus interface is finding which abbreviations are used for each part of speech (POS). The list is currently hosted at http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/claws7tags.html. I have also pasted the current set below.
APPGE
|
possessive pronoun, pre-nominal (e.g. my, your, our)
|
AT
|
article (e.g. the, no)
|
AT1
|
singular article (e.g. a, an, every)
|
BCL
|
before-clause marker (e.g. in order (that),in order (to))
|
CC
|
coordinating conjunction (e.g. and, or)
|
CCB
|
adversative coordinating conjunction ( but)
|
CS
|
subordinating conjunction (e.g. if, because, unless, so, for)
|
CSA
|
as (as conjunction)
|
CSN
|
than (as conjunction)
|
CST
|
that (as conjunction)
|
CSW
|
whether (as conjunction)
|
DA
|
after-determiner or post-determiner capable of pronominal function (e.g. such, former, same)
|
DA1
|
singular after-determiner (e.g. little, much)
|
DA2
|
plural after-determiner (e.g. few, several, many)
|
DAR
|
comparative after-determiner (e.g. more, less, fewer)
|
DAT
|
superlative after-determiner (e.g. most, least, fewest)
|
DB
|
before determiner or pre-determiner capable of pronominal function (all, half)
|
DB2
|
plural before-determiner ( both)
|
DD
|
determiner (capable of pronominal function) (e.g any, some)
|
DD1
|
singular determiner (e.g. this, that, another)
|
DD2
|
plural determiner ( these,those)
|
DDQ
|
wh-determiner (which, what)
|
DDQGE
|
wh-determiner, genitive (whose)
|
DDQV
|
wh-ever determiner, (whichever, whatever)
|
EX
|
existential there
|
FO
|
formula
|
FU
|
unclassified word
|
FW
|
foreign word
|
GE
|
germanic genitive marker - (' or's)
|
IF
|
for (as preposition)
|
II
|
general preposition
|
IO
|
of (as preposition)
|
IW
|
with, without (as prepositions)
|
JJ
|
general adjective
|
JJR
|
general comparative adjective (e.g. older, better, stronger)
|
JJT
|
general superlative adjective (e.g. oldest, best, strongest)
|
JK
|
catenative adjective (able in be able to, willing in be willing to)
|
MC
|
cardinal number,neutral for number (two, three..)
|
MC1
|
singular cardinal number (one)
|
MC2
|
plural cardinal number (e.g. sixes, sevens)
|
MCGE
|
genitive cardinal number, neutral for number (two's, 100's)
|
MCMC
|
hyphenated number (40-50, 1770-1827)
|
MD
|
ordinal number (e.g. first, second, next, last)
|
MF
|
fraction,neutral for number (e.g. quarters, two-thirds)
|
ND1
|
singular noun of direction (e.g. north, southeast)
|
NN
|
common noun, neutral for number (e.g. sheep, cod, headquarters)
|
NN1
|
singular common noun (e.g. book, girl)
|
NN2
|
plural common noun (e.g. books, girls)
|
NNA
|
following noun of title (e.g. M.A.)
|
NNB
|
preceding noun of title (e.g. Mr., Prof.)
|
NNL1
|
singular locative noun (e.g. Island, Street)
|
NNL2
|
plural locative noun (e.g. Islands, Streets)
|
NNO
|
numeral noun, neutral for number (e.g. dozen, hundred)
|
NNO2
|
numeral noun, plural (e.g. hundreds, thousands)
|
NNT1
|
temporal noun, singular (e.g. day, week, year)
|
NNT2
|
temporal noun, plural (e.g. days, weeks, years)
|
NNU
|
unit of measurement, neutral for number (e.g. in, cc)
|
NNU1
|
singular unit of measurement (e.g. inch, centimetre)
|
NNU2
|
plural unit of measurement (e.g. ins., feet)
|
NP
|
proper noun, neutral for number (e.g. IBM, Andes)
|
NP1
|
singular proper noun (e.g. London, Jane, Frederick)
|
NP2
|
plural proper noun (e.g. Browns, Reagans, Koreas)
|
NPD1
|
singular weekday noun (e.g. Sunday)
|
NPD2
|
plural weekday noun (e.g. Sundays)
|
NPM1
|
singular month noun (e.g. October)
|
NPM2
|
plural month noun (e.g. Octobers)
|
PN
|
indefinite pronoun, neutral for number (none)
|
PN1
|
indefinite pronoun, singular (e.g. anyone, everything, nobody, one)
|
PNQO
|
objective wh-pronoun (whom)
|
PNQS
|
subjective wh-pronoun (who)
|
PNQV
|
wh-ever pronoun (whoever)
|
PNX1
|
reflexive indefinite pronoun (oneself)
|
PPGE
|
nominal possessive personal pronoun (e.g. mine, yours)
|
PPH1
|
3rd person sing. neuter personal pronoun (it)
|
PPHO1
|
3rd person sing. objective personal pronoun (him, her)
|
PPHO2
|
3rd person plural objective personal pronoun (them)
|
PPHS1
|
3rd person sing. subjective personal pronoun (he, she)
|
PPHS2
|
3rd person plural subjective personal pronoun (they)
|
PPIO1
|
1st person sing. objective personal pronoun (me)
|
PPIO2
|
1st person plural objective personal pronoun (us)
|
PPIS1
|
1st person sing. subjective personal pronoun (I)
|
PPIS2
|
1st person plural subjective personal pronoun (we)
|
PPX1
|
singular reflexive personal pronoun (e.g. yourself, itself)
|
PPX2
|
plural reflexive personal pronoun (e.g. yourselves, themselves)
|
PPY
|
2nd person personal pronoun (you)
|
RA
|
adverb, after nominal head (e.g. else, galore)
|
REX
|
adverb introducing appositional constructions (namely, e.g.)
|
RG
|
degree adverb (very, so, too)
|
RGQ
|
wh- degree adverb (how)
|
RGQV
|
wh-ever degree adverb (however)
|
RGR
|
comparative degree adverb (more, less)
|
RGT
|
superlative degree adverb (most, least)
|
RL
|
locative adverb (e.g. alongside, forward)
|
RP
|
prep. adverb, particle (e.g about, in)
|
RPK
|
prep. adv., catenative (about in be about to)
|
RR
|
general adverb
|
RRQ
|
wh- general adverb (where, when, why, how)
|
RRQV
|
wh-ever general adverb (wherever, whenever)
|
RRR
|
comparative general adverb (e.g. better, longer)
|
RRT
|
superlative general adverb (e.g. best, longest)
|
RT
|
quasi-nominal adverb of time (e.g. now, tomorrow)
|
TO
|
infinitive marker (to)
|
UH
|
interjection (e.g. oh, yes, um)
|
VB0
|
be, base form (finite i.e. imperative, subjunctive)
|
VBDR
|
were
|
VBDZ
|
was
|
VBG
|
being
|
VBI
|
be, infinitive (To be or not... It will be ..)
|
VBM
|
am
|
VBN
|
been
|
VBR
|
are
|
VBZ
|
is
|
VD0
|
do, base form (finite)
|
VDD
|
did
|
VDG
|
doing
|
VDI
|
do, infinitive (I may do... To do...)
|
VDN
|
done
|
VDZ
|
does
|
VH0
|
have, base form (finite)
|
VHD
|
had (past tense)
|
VHG
|
having
|
VHI
|
have, infinitive
|
VHN
|
had (past participle)
|
VHZ
|
has
|
VM
|
modal auxiliary (can, will, would, etc.)
|
VMK
|
modal catenative (ought, used)
|
VV0
|
base form of lexical verb (e.g. give, work)
|
VVD
|
past tense of lexical verb (e.g. gave, worked)
|
VVG
|
-ing participle of lexical verb (e.g. giving, working)
|
VVGK
|
-ing participle catenative (going in be going to)
|
VVI
|
infinitive (e.g. to give... It will work...)
|
VVN
|
past participle of lexical verb (e.g. given, worked)
|
VVNK
|
past participle catenative (e.g. bound in be bound to)
|
VVZ
|
-s form of lexical verb (e.g. gives, works)
|
XX
|
not, n't
|
ZZ1
|
singular letter of the alphabet (e.g. A,b)
|
ZZ2
|
plural letter of the alphabet (e.g. A's, b's)
|
NOTE: "DITTO TAGS"
Any of the tags listed above may in theory be modified by the addition of a pair of numbers to it: eg. DD21, DD22 This signifies that the tag occurs as part of a sequence of similar tags, representing a sequence of words which for grammatical purposes are treated as a single unit. For example the expression in terms of is treated as a single preposition, receiving the tags:
in_II31 terms_II32 of_II33
The first of the two digits indicates the number of words/tags in the sequence, and the second digit the position of each word within that sequence.
Such ditto tags are not included in the lexicon, but are assigned automatically by a program called IDIOMTAG which looks for a range of multi-word sequences included in the idiomlist. The following sample entries from the idiomlist show that syntactic ambiguity is taken into account, and also that, depending on the context, ditto tags may or may not be required for a particular word sequence:at_RR21 length_RR22 a_DD21/RR21 lot_DD22/RR22 in_CS21/II that_CS22/DD1
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