[Corpora-List] Searching BNC for adverbs followed by verb

[Sebastian Hoffmann]

>Dear collegues,
>
>I would like to know if it is possible to search the BNC in order to
>find out which adverbs precede a particular verb.
>
>It doesn't seem to be possible, or at least I haven't figured out the
>way to query the database in order to retrieve this sort of information.
>
>Thank you in advance for your help,
>Gloria

With BNCweb, this can easily be done with the 
help of the "sort feature". Just perform a query 
for the different word-forms of your verb of your 
choice (or use the lemma search feature) and sort 
the result on the preceding word. Then select a 
POS-tag restriction for "any adverb".
If you need simple descriptive statistics, you 
can then select "frequency list" from the 
relevant menu - this will display a list of 
adverbs preceding the verb ordered by frequency.

Further information about BNCweb can be found at 
http://homepage.mac.com/bncweb/home.html. At this 
web-site you'll also find a detailed manual 
describing the whole range of features of BNCweb.

Hope this helps...
Sebastian

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Sebastian Hoffmann
Englisches Seminar der Univ. Zürich
Plattenstrasse 47
CH-8032 Zürich
Tel: +41-1-634 3551
Fax: +41-1-634 4908