A9) "Pretty": adjective vs. adverb (COCA + BYU interface)

Corpus: Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)

Programs: BYU-interface

Tasks:

• Pretty as an adjective can premodify nouns or be used in predicative function. Pretty as an adverb occurs mostly before adjectives and other adverbs. The COCA is a Part-of-Speech-tagged corpus in which the disambiguation has been carried out by a semi-automated tagging procedure. Use the Part-of-Speech (POS) tags to find out frequencies of these grammatical functions in the different sections of the COCA.
• Compare the relative percentages of pretty (Adj) and pretty (Adv) in the different subdivisions of the corpus.
• Carry out manual spot checks to find out to what extent the POS-tagging is adequate.

Notes:

• The corpus and the BYU interface can be accessed on the Internet: http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/
• After a few searches you will have to create a username and password (free of charge).

• Users taking part in the course "Methods and Theories in Linguistics" can use the password metheling to join the account for the University of Bamberg: In order to do so, make sure the [Organization] in the form under "Personal Information" at the bottom of that page matches the name Universität Bamberg (exactly), and click [Update]. Then enter the password metheling and click on [Join Group], after which you will then be added to the group account for our university. You will then have increased access and advanced features.

• Try out the different display modes (upper left corner).
• If you want to save your results, the best idea seems to be highlighting and copying/pasting of content.
• The website itself includes a help function and ample documentation.