query re Va. Runaway ads

[P L Patrick]

(I'm not currently an ADS-L subscriber, so please address
any replies to me directly or I won't see them! thanks...)

Has any linguistic research been done on the archives of newspaper ads
for runaway slaves in Virginia? I have a student about to begin work on
them but would like to know if anything exists.

Also, in a related query about searching in a very simple query
language (ie, one that does not even allow wildcards-- only actual
occurring forms). Does anyone have, from experience, a list of lexical
items related to speech or language that one could build a search from?
Yes, I know we could all build one by trial and error-- or
introspection, if not the empirical type!-- but I *know* someone must
have done this before and just wonder if I could build on that
experience (happy to credit them if anything comes out of it!).
        Thanks,
        --peter p.

Prof. Peter L. Patrick
Dept. of Language & Linguistics
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
COLCHESTER CO4 3SQ
U.K.

Tel: (from within UK) 01206.87.2088
    (from outside UK) +44.1206.87.2088
Fax: (as above)           1206.87.2198
Email: patrickp at essex.ac.uk
Web: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp