3.1.2 Exercises for BNC editions
This section contains a set of exercises on query building options and categorizing a certain target structure for three available editions of the British National Corpus: BNC-XML with XAIRA, BYU-BNC and BNC with BNCweb.
At the present stage of development of corpus software, there is a set of basic options available in most corpus tools, which is thoroughly described in User’s Guides. As the set of the additional software functions required depends on the research goals, it seems reasonable to offer an extended introduction to query building, as this procedure may differ in various corpus tools.
The common task for the first set of exercises is to create a query for the split infinitive construction by using a combination of POS-tags and comparing its frequency in academic writing and spoken demographic sections of the BNC. The second set of exercises will focus on categorizing target structures.
Split Infinitive
The syntactic structure chosen for this set of exercises is the split infinitive.
The split infinitive in English is a syntactic construction in which an adverbial modifier is placed between the marker ‘to’ and the bare infinitive form of a verb. A prime example for such a construction is the sentence To boldly go where no man has gone before from a Star Trek introductory text.
Examples:
Regular meetings are held with residents to better understand their problems.
I will have to seriously consider my position.
It seemed to take you a long time to actually get there. (BNC)
Splitting infinitives is commonplace in spoken and written language, but since the 19th century there has been a “widespread prejudice against split infinitives” (Quirk 1985: 497), which by some are considered “weak style”. Even now, one may come across a traditionalist recommendation against its use in formal writing, despite the fact that “there has never been a rational basis for objecting to the split infinitive” (Merriam-Webster 1994: 867). During the last decades split infinitives have become broadly accepted as normal practice (cf. Oxford New Dictionary 1998, Merriam-Webster 1994).
Moreover, there are cases of "obligatory split infinitives" (Clark 2006: 79), where it is impossible to avoid such a construction without distorting the sense of the phrase or causing ambiguity. (cf. Quirk 1985: 497)
Example:
Barclays has announced plans to more than double its network of wipe-through machines. (BNC)
For the purposes of this section we will concentrate on the most usual case of split infinitives – a single adverb between the marker ‘to’ and the infinitive.
Exercises on query building options:
Exercises on categorizing target structures:
3.1.2.4 Exercises for BNCweb
3.1.2.5 BNC-XML with XAIRA
3.1.2.6 Exercises for BYU-BNC
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