4CA. Adjectives & Determiners Corpus Activities

a. To help us understand adjectives more clearly, let’s compare how adjectives are used with the nouns [man] and [woman]. Recall from the Intro to Corpus Analysis module that the brackets allow us to capture both the singular and plural form of the search word. Thus, in this activity, we will look at adjectives used with man/men and woman/women.

For the search, click the search option compare from the options listed above the search bar (expand it first by clicking on +). In the first search bar, enter [man] and then enter [woman] in the second. In the third bar, enter ADJ or click ADJ.all from the dropdown menu. This will limit the search to only the adjectives which are used with the search words. For the collocation span, you can leave it at the default of 4L-4R. Click Sorting and choose Sorting: Frequency. Finally, click compare words.

View the results for the most frequent adjectives for [man] and [woman]. What similarities and/or differences can you observe in how [man] and [woman] are described in US discourse?

b. In this activity, rather than looking for adjectives let’s instead explore the nouns used with two related adjectives. Using the compare search again, enter beautiful and attractive in the search bars. Rather than entering ADJ in the third bar, add NOUN or select NOUN.all from the dropdown menu. In this search, change the Sorting setting from Frequency to Relevance. By doing so, we will see which nouns commonly occur with one adjective but not the other. Click compare words.

Many people speak of synonyms and imagine certain words to be interchangeable. However, linguists prefer to speak of ‘near synonyms’. From the results, can you determine and explain why linguists prefer the term ‘near synonym’?

1. Make a list of five suffixes used to mark adjectives. Using a wildcard search, identify the five most frequent adjectives which include the suffix. Recall that * is the wildcard that allows us to capture any string of words that occur in the position in which the * is entered. For example, *ful produces a list of adjectives that end with –ful.
2. The suffix -ish has long been attached to words such as stylish and childish to express certain meanings. In these instances, the suffix is added to the nouns style and child. However, in informal speech, -ish is used productively to modify the degree of strength ascribed to a noun. For example, rather than saying, “It’s hot today”, one may modify and say, “It’s hot-ish today”. As an English language user, one would know that hot-ish is indeed hot but there is acknowledgement that it could indeed be hotter.
   1. List 3-5 adjectives with the suffix -ish added that you have encountered.
   2. If you’re having difficulty thinking of examples, search *-ish in the COCA. What are the five most frequent entries in the results?
   3. At present, language users are choosing to include the dash before adding the suffix. If we think broadly of language change, do you think in a few years we will start dropping the dash?

1. Happiest, loneliest, earliest….What do you think are the most frequently used superlative adjectives ending with -iest? List your five guesses.
2. Complete the wildcard search *iest in the COCA. What are the five most common superlative adjectives ending with -iest? (Careful: not all words that end with -iest are adjectives.) How accurate were your guesses?
3. Complete the same search with the comparative suffix -ier. Again, be careful as not all words that end with -ier are adjectives. In the first twenty words that end with -ier, identify which words are actually adjectives and which are not.

As discussed, lexical items such as this, that, these, and those can function either as pronouns or determiners. In the former, using this/that/these/those allows the speaker or writer to replace the noun phrase with the pronoun, enabling more efficient communication by limiting needed repetition.

1. In the COCA, search . That * for both the spoken and academic register. Note that we are including a . in the search to capture only those instances that begin a sentence. Begin with academic register–enter . That * in the search bar and select Academic from the sections options. Click find matching strings and record the top five most frequent structures fulfilling the search.
2. Repeat the search but select Spoken rather than Academic.

The data indicates that there are similarities regarding which structures are selected most commonly in each register. However, there is a significant difference in the frequency at which the structures are used in each register. Considering carefully the unique nature of each of these registers, how would you explain this variation?

In the COCA, search for 1. DET, 2. DET DET, and 3. DET DET DET. Which types of determiners, pre-, central, and post- are the 3 most frequent for each?

The definite article seems as if it would be a rather simple feature to acquire for second language speakers of English. However, research has demonstrated that acquisition of this article is actually quite difficult for many language learners because of the many situations in which it is used and the other situations in which it is dropped. Liu and Gleason (2002) argued that the four situations in which the definite article ‘the’ is used are textual, situational, structural, and cultural (refer to 4.2.2 for examples). In their study, they evaluated use of the definite article by nearly 150 English language learners across three levels of proficiency (low, intermediate, advanced).

1. In what order do you think the learners acquired the four uses of the definite article? What is your explanation for the order you selected?

2. In the COCA, find and record a sample sentence that uses the definite article the for each of the four categories. Also, find and record a sample sentence for cultural instances where the article is not used.

In the COCA, search the phrase string ADJ ADJ ADJ NOUN. Identify five of phrases from the results and label each adjective according to the order of adjectives rule.

In the COCA, search for the most frequent adjectives by using the list function, entering ADJ in the search bar, and clicking find matching strings.

List the ten most common adjectives and check whether they are used attributively, predicatively, or both. Remember by clicking on the word you can see sample sentences to help you verify your answers.

For this activity, use the Corpus of Historical American English. In the COHA, select the collocates function, enter [immigrant] in the search bar, and select ADJ.all from the dropdown menu next to the second search bar, set the collocation window to 1L-0R as we are interested in attributive adjectives, click the box next to sections, and then select Find collocates.

1. What is the highest frequency predicate adjective used with [immigrant]?
2. In what years did the first instances of the collocation illegal + [immigrant] occur in the COHA?
3. What is the context in which the collocation appears?
4. Which decade has the highest frequency of use for the collocation?

Our present discourse may lead us to imagine the collocation of illegal + immigrant as natural, inherent, and normal. However, this brief analysis indicates this collocation has a tragic genesis and only has become common in the past 20 years of US discourse.

Similarly, we can explore how the use of a particular adjective has been differently attached to nouns over its history of use. Once again using the COHA, enter gay into the search box and add NOUN in the second bar. For this search, let’s set the collocation window at 4L-4R to capture the various nouns used in the linguistics context with the adjective gay. Also, click the box next to sections.

1. What is the most frequent noun used in the context of gay?
2. Describe the frequency of this collocation over the 200-year period of the collocation?
3. Which nouns no longer seem to be described with the adjective gay?

In the COCA, select the list search function and enter NOUN ADJ in the search bar. In the sections list, choose the Academic register. Then, click find matching strings. In the resulting data, identify five post-positive adjective structures. Remember that the NOUN ADJ pattern can occur elsewhere in language, so you will need to think carefully and look at sample sentences in order to determine which are indeed post-positive adjectives and which are not.

In the COCA, click on the icon at the top of the screen that looks like a small box with text. This function allows users to copy and paste their own texts into an input box in order to analyze the language use of a text of interest. Once you click on the icon, you will see the settings Samples and My Texts above the input box. Click Samples and choose Newspaper. After you do so, a sample text from the register will appear in the box. Scan the text and identify 10 adjectives; if you are not certain if a word is an adjective, just click on it and more information will be revealed. For each adjective, note the noun it is modifying, whether it is used attributively or predicatively, and whether it is gradable or not.