6CA. Pronouns Corpus Activities

In the COCA, enter PRON in the search bar or select pron.ALL from the dropdown menu next to the search bar. Click find matching strings. You will later explore the different types of pronouns, but from scanning the list of the first 20 on the results list, place the pronouns into groups that make sense to you. Explain briefly why you bundled the pronouns as you did.

In the COCA, select the word function from the options above the search bar. Enter she in the search bar and click See detailed info for the word. On the results page, you will see KWIC lines–these are the color-coded sample sentences where each color represents a particular word class. For the first 15 KWIC lines, determine whether she is an antecedent or postcedent.

Which register (e.g., TV/Movies, blog, web, spoken, etc.) do you feel uses the highest frequency of pronouns? Which do you think uses the lowest frequency of pronouns? On what do you base this intuition? First, using the Chart search function in the COCA, search with the tag PRON in the search bar. Which register has the highest and lowest frequency? Did this match your intuition? How might you explain why the register with the highest number of pronouns so frequently uses pronouns? And why for the register with the lowest frequency of pronouns?

In the COCA, enter the following search syntax into the search bar: . _pp  _vb _pp

Notice that the search syntax places a period in the first slot in order to capture patterns that begin sentences. Following the period is the tag for personal pronoun, the be verb, and then personal pronoun again.

After clicking find matching strings, look at the common pronoun + verb + pronoun patterns that appear at the beginning of sentences.

1. Are there patterns that begin with me?
2. Are there patterns that begin with him?
3. Are there patterns that begin with her?
4. Are the patterns that begin with us?

There is a popular notion that academic writing is characterized by minimal author presence. In other words, there are few personal pronouns used in the forms of writing in the academic register. For some, this quality demonstrates that the author is an objective, unbiased observer, and if they were to use personal pronouns, they would perhaps lose their objective stance toward the topic.

In your experiences in a writing classroom, have you ever been instructed to remove personal pronouns from your writing? What explanation was given to justify the advice?

Using the Chart search function in the COCA,, search for the subject pronoun ‘I’. Does the data support the popular belief that the academic register is impersonal? In other words, is the per million frequency of ‘I’ in the academic register significantly lower than it is in other registers? With access to this data, do you think your use of ‘I’ in your academic writing will remain the same or will you change your use?

Which personal pronoun (e.g., I, you, it, he, she, we, they) do you believe is the most frequently used English pronoun? Once you have reflected upon your intuition and ranked their frequency from highest to lowest, complete a List search in the COCA with the tag PRON in the search box. To what extent did your intuition match the data?

In the COCA, enter POSS in the search bar to view a list of possessive pronouns.

Next, complete a search for his NOUN in the fiction register. In the sort/limit options space, select relevance rather than frequency. By sorting by relevance, you view which pairs bond together most strongly. In other words, they appear together more frequently than they appear separately, so if you see one, you are likely to encounter the other. From the results page, note 10 pairs that bond together strongly and frequently and record them on a separate document.

Complete the same search with the same settings but substitute her for his. Note and record 10 more pairs.

To what extent do the nouns possessed by male and female characters in fiction converge or diverge?

Some grammarians argue that some indefinite pronouns like ‘none’ are always singular, while others have argued it can be both. Look at the following sentences:

1. None of my dresses is appropriate for a formal event.
2. I discussed with all of my classmates, but none are able to meet with me.

Grammarians arguing for the possibility that ‘none’ may be both singular and plural point to examples such as these. In sentence (1), they state the singular is accurate for ‘none’ in this case means “not a single one” or “not one is”. In (2), they argue that ‘none’ instead means “not one of many”.

In your own language use, do you feel you use ‘none’ as if it were singular or plural or do you alternate between ‘none is’ and ‘none are’.

In the COCA, search ‘none _vb’ using the list function. How many instances of ‘none is’ and ‘none are’ are displayed in the findings? Is the data at all surprising? Does the data provide you any insight into which you should use? Click to see the samples for ‘none are’. Do these feel incorrect and problematic to you?