[Corpora-List] V Object into V-ing

Thu Nov 21 09:29:30 UTC 2013

Dear Jason, Adam, and the list
Just to add a footnote to David's message below (with apologies - this isn't the sort of thing I usually do):

The V n into -ing pattern turns out to be very productive, which means that the number of verbs found occasionally in it is bound to be large and unstable. Some thoughts and observations on the phenomenon are offered in S. Hunston and G. Francis Pattern Grammar: a corpus-driven approach to the lexical grammar of English (1999, Benjamins), chapter 4, section 2, with particular comments on this pattern in section 4.2.5 (starts page 102). There are some predictions in that section about restrictions on meaning for the pattern (as well as discussion of some unusual examples) and I'd be interested to see if these had turned out to be correct.

Susan

From: corpora-bounces at uib.no [mailto:corpora-bounces at uib.no] On Behalf Of Oakey, David [ENGL]
Sent: 20 November 2013 14:43
To: Jason Eisner; Adam Kilgarriff
Cc: corpora
Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] V Object into V-ing

Hello Jason and Adam,

A list from a pedagogical perspective is in COBUILD Grammar Patterns 1. The  [V Object into V-ing] construction maps onto the grammar pattern V n into -ing:

https://arts-ccr-002.bham.ac.uk/ccr/patgram/ch04.html#s17

This page gives lists of verbs which fit this pattern - they are grouped into four principal senses: FORCE (e.g. force, bully, frighten), TRICK (trick, entrap, mislead), CHARM (charm, cajole, flatter) and SPUR  (spur, nudge, galvanize). The Objects are all human, and the Adjunct needs to be a prepositional phrase consisting of into and a non-finite -ing clause, and, as Jason points out, not all -ing forms following into begin non-finite clauses, e.g.

1)  his union plans to pursue similar lawsuits to force manufacturers into producing safer needles

2)  Conservatives are eager to force liberals into embarrassing votes

Example 1 is an instance of the construction/pattern, while 2 isn't.

Even when put appears to be used in this construction/pattern, as in 3 where into introduces a non-finite -ing clause, the Object isn't human, so put doesn't take on any of the force, trick, charm or spur meanings:

3)    When you put money into renovating your home

I couldn't find drop in COCA with a human Object followed by into introducing a non-finite -ing clause.

Best wishes,

David

From: corpora-bounces at uib.no<mailto:corpora-bounces at uib.no> [mailto:corpora-bounces at uib.no] On Behalf Of Jason Eisner
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2013 6:58 AM
To: Adam Kilgarriff
Cc: corpora
Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] V Object into V-ing

Nice list, Adam.  I notice that most of these verbs involve inducement to behave in a particular way, whether by trickery, force, or persuasion.

This doesn't seem to correspond to any of Levin's classes<http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/levin.verbs>, but some of her other classes such as 02.13.4 overlap with it, and those classes even provide some new candidates.  E.g., looking at 02.13.4, I think I could easily use soothe, surprise, startle, provoke, enrage ... in this construction (and a quick web search seems to bear me out).

Most of the other verbs on your list seem to involve physical transfer (put, bring, throw, drop, plunge, pour, ...).  But I suspect that those are not actually instances of the construction in question, but rather come from spurious examples like "drop it into boiling [water]," where "into" is a spatial preposition and "boiling" is an adjectival participle.  A few of the verbs could plausibly be used in both constructions, such as "guide."
It's tempting to use a parsed corpus such as Annotated Gigaword to distinguish the two constructions.  However, it's probably safer just to filter out cases where the -ing word is followed by a noun.  These cases could either be omitted from your analysis or analyzed by hand, but they are likely to confuse an automatic parser.  Indeed, without context, "coax him into boiling water" is ambiguous even to a human.
(Warning: "Followed by a noun" is not a perfect pattern, e.g., it won't catch "drop it into boiling and sulfurous water."  You could play with the pattern: the question is whether "boiling" could plausibly be the first word of an NP rather than a VP.  I haven't looked at the data myself.  Clever use of a probabilistic parser could identify cases that unambiguously use one or the other construction, versus doubtful cases, but unfortunately, pre-parsed corpora generally only offer a single parse per sentence.)
-cheers, jason

On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 6:48 AM, Adam Kilgarriff <adam at lexmasterclass.com<mailto:adam at lexmasterclass.com>> wrote:
Chris,

Not sure about academic papers, but here are the verbs that do it most in the 113,436 hits for the pattern in enTenTen12

Adam

4146 trick
3521 talk
2784 fool
1355 put
1154 delude
944 mislead
907 scare
861 deceive
577 bring
400 force
387 pressure
300 lure
268 manipulate
248 push
248 convert
213 turn
190 lead
189 brainwash
170 con
167 get
134 dupe
101 confuse
100 entice
99 guide
98 call
90 coerce
84 do
80 go
69 seduce
67 integrate
60 speak
60 lull
56 tempt
49 throw
47 provide
46 coax
41 kid
41 intimidate
38 invest
37 cross
34 drop
33 rush
29 stimulate
26 persuade
25 frighten
23 take
22 plunge
22 incorporate
19 make
19 lock
19 convince
18 pour
18 hoodwink
18 badger
17 shame
17 motivate
15 tease
15 regard
15 breathe
13 draw
12 dream
11 move
10 sucker
10 panic
10 harass

On 20 November 2013 10:42, Christoph Ruehlemann <chrisruehlemann at googlemail.com<mailto:chrisruehlemann at googlemail.com>> wrote:
Hi all,
I'm interested in the [V Object into V-ing] construction, as in *You bullied me into becoming yur girlfriend* (BNC: HGM 3178). Is anybody aware of ongoing research or published papers into this? (I faintly remember seeing a paper read at one of the ICAME conferences, but cannot remember which one.)
Cheers
Chris

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