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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Dear corpora members</FONT></SPAN></P>
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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">We are interested in:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoBodyText style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">How frequently coordination ambiguity of the form ‘Adj Noun1 and Noun2’ (e.g., old men and women) occurred in the BNC?</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">How frequently PP-attachment ambiguity of the form ‘Verb NP PP’ (e.g., buy books for children) occurred in the BNC?<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">How frequently PP-attachment ambiguity of the form ‘NP1 and NP2 PP’ (e.g., the men and the women in the garden) occurred in the BNC?<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"> <o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Using Gsearch with an appropriate English Grammar, I have found the following:<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"> <o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt 18pt; TEXT-INDENT: -18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1"><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">1.<SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">Number of files searched = 2169<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt 18pt; TEXT-INDENT: -18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1"><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">2.<SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">Number of sentences in the BNC = 3043718 (~ 3.04 millions)<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt 18pt; TEXT-INDENT: -18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1"><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">3.<SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">Number of Noun Phrases (NPs) in the BNC = 2391489 (~ 2.3 millions)<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt 18pt; TEXT-INDENT: -18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1"><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">4.<SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">Number of occurrences of the NPs of the form ‘Adj Noun1 and Noun2’ = 60192 (~ 0.06 millions)= 2.52% of the NPs = 1.98% of the sentences<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt 18pt; TEXT-INDENT: -18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1"><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">5.<SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">Number of occurrences of PP-attachment ambiguity of the form ‘Verb NP PP’ = 60906 (~ 0.06 millions)<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt 18pt; TEXT-INDENT: -18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1"><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">6.<SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </SPAN></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">Number of occurrences of PP-attachment ambiguity of the form ‘NP1 and NP2 PP’ = 19035 (~ 0.02 millions)</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt 18pt; TEXT-INDENT: -18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1"><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"></SPAN></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt 18pt; TEXT-INDENT: -18pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1"><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">I know that the BNC contains ca. 100 million words, but Gserch output shows that approximately 62 million words are searched (as some of the files couldn't be filtered).</SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman"> <o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoBodyText style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">From this I can conclude, for example, that ‘Adj Noun1 and Noun2’ accounts for 2.52% of the NPs in the BNC.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"> <o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Am I correct? Any suggestions.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"> <o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"> <o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">Regards</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"></FONT></SPAN> </P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman">
<DIV>
<DIV>Imtiaz H. Khan</DIV>
<DIV>PhD Research Student</DIV>
<DIV>Computing Science Department</DIV>
<DIV>University of Aberdeen</DIV>
<DIV><A href="https://mail.abdn.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://mail.abdn.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~ikhan/" target=_blank>http://www.csd.abdn.ac.uk/~ikhan/</A></DIV></DIV><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV><p></p><p style="font-size: 10pt ; color:#772244 ; font-family:Arial, sans-serif">The University of Aberdeen is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013683.</BODY></HTML>