[Corpora-List] frequent meanings of a word

[Ziwei Huang]

Hello, I have a methodological question that needs your kind help:

I need to look at the frequently used meanings of about 200 different words in BNC corpus, and wonder whether there is a quick/easy way to do that?

My intended way is to randomly select 500 instances of a word from the whole corpus, then 
look at 50 instances (say, the 1st, 11st, 21st ... 491st instances) and list the meanings (and their frequencies) of the word; then move to the next 50 instances (2nd, 12nd... 492nd) to see whether any new meanings have come out; if there is any then move to the next 50 instances, and repeat that until no more new meanings emerge.

Can someone kindly tell me whether this approach is acceptable to describe the frequently used meanings of a word (or the 'default' meanings of a word in actual use), and whether there is any reference/source for this (or any other easy and quick) methodology?

Many thanks!

Mimi


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