finding dative constructions

[RCorrigan]

I am trying to search for dative constructions in English, both
ditransitives and prepositional object constructions, produced by all
speakers (both adults and children). I have been using COMBO with the
following "s" file:
*OBJ^*^*OBJ2*
for^*
prep|to^*

I then hand check to weed out all the "for" and "to" constructions
that are not datives. It also seems that for some files there are alot
of errors with coding OBJ2, so the combo search misses alot of
constructions.  To pick up some of the rest, I have been using KWAL
with a list of verbs that are commonly used in dative constructions.
Of course, I miss any uncommonly used verbs. Plus, many verbs that are
used commonly in datives are also commonly used in other constructions
(e.g., get and make) , so again there is a lot of hand screening. And
in addition, some of the constructions I've already identified with
the COMBO search show up again with the KWAL search.

All in all, I think I'm doing this in a very clunky way and it might
actually be faster to read each line of each file by hand!

I checked the archives and I can't seem to find any posts on these
constructions. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Bobbi Corrigan

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