2000 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

Toward the Compilation of Better English Diachronic Corpora-A Preliminary Study-

Research Project

Project/Area Number	10610470
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	英語・英米文学
Research Institution	Yamaguchi University (2000) Kobe University (1998-1999)
Principal Investigator	NISHIMURA Hideo Faculty of Education Yamaguchi University, Associate Professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (00164591)
Project Period (FY)	1998 – 2000
Keywords	diachronic corpora / Helsinki Corpus of English Texts / Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler / text type / degree adverbs
Research Abstract	The primary aim of the present research project is to assess the validity of the diachronic part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (hereafter HC) as a tool for the historical study of the English language. Special emphasis has been laid on the size, text type classification and sampling principle of HC. In addition to the assessment of HC itself, comparisons have been made with other more 'specific' corpora or computerized texts. Of these materials, Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (hereafter CEECS) has produced very intriguing results. I have investigated the distribution and collocational patterns of the three degree adverbs (full, right, very) in CEECS, and the results have revealed that text type 'correspondence' is more innovative on the use of the degree adverbs than the other text types. This fact suggests the necessity of the compilation of larger and more genre-specific corpora.

(4 results)