[Corpora-List] help with WS concordance search by syntax

[Geoffrey Williams]

Hi Linda,

Lovely to hear from you.

I too did not find 'Linda Bawcom of Huston' in the BNC, maybe because 
you were not in Huston when the BNC was built. However, the answer to 
your query may lie in TEI syntax. If you try the full syntax of <w 
type="NP0 you will get results. You can add in <w type="PRF if you want 
'of' in context.The full syntax includes the lemma, which is why I have 
left the tag open so as to get all instances of NP0.

For the sake of speed I tested this on the BNC baby rather than the full 
corpus. I used a search on Bill Clinton of Arkansas, which I found by 
using Clinton+of, to build up a full pattern.

Hope this helps

Geoffrey

Dr. G. C. Williams
Professeur des Universités
Université de Bretagne Sud,
Lorient, France




Linda Bawcom a écrit :

>Dear friends, colleagues and list members,
>   
>  I once again need your  expertise.
>   
>  I am using the BNC and Wordsmith (as many of probably know by now).  I want to find instances of : Proper Name of Place (e.g. Linda Bawcom of Houston). At first I just tried (after finding an example in a text)<w NP0>* to get a frequency on proper names, but (eventually) got a slip stream error, so (in desperation) I tried  for 'of' and also got (eventually) another slip stream error.  So lastly I tried <w NP0>* [and] of  (to avoid the slip stream problem) and and got no examples. I leave a space between the *  and [and] and then another space before 'of'.  Is it possible that there are actually no instances?  Or can those of you who are experts searching by tag tell me what I'm doing wrong? 
>   
>  Kindest regards,
>  Linda
>   
>   
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>      "Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind." John Donne
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