English grammar - Roger Berry 2012
C1 Words with multiple word-class membership
Section C Exploration
The first eight exploration sections involve the study of concordance lines. You may already be familiar with them; there are a number of websites where you can obtain your own concordance lines. Basically they are taken from an electronic ’corpus’ (or collection of texts) which can be searched for examples of any word of interest (among other things). The lines used here come from the British National Corpus, ’a 100 million word snapshot of British English’, made up of 4000 spoken and written texts from the 1990s. More information can be found at www.natcorp@oucs.ox.ac.uk
The lines do not always make up complete sentences; sometimes they are too long for the page. But there is always enough information to analyse the word we are interested in - the keyword, which is in bold. In order to make the lines understandable, some selection has been carried out; in other words, they are not entirely random. But an attempt has been made to make them as representative as possible (e.g. to make the lines reflect the major uses proportionately), while also showing as wide a range of uses as possible. And the text of the lines is authentic - there has been no editing to simplify them (apart from the occasional addition of a bracketed subject).
Here are some techniques which you might find useful when analysing concordance lines (and when you are trying to understand texts in general):
□ Look at the words around the keyword. Which words does it ’go with’? For example, a word preceded by a and followed by of is almost certainly a noun. However, the important words may not be directly before or after. For example, a may occur several words ahead of the noun it goes with.
□ Try replacing the keyword with a similar word which you are sure about.
□ Change the form of the keyword. For example, add -s to a noun to make it plural to find out if it is count or not.
□ Try moving words around. Does it make a difference? For instance, is there a difference between they turned us on and they turned on us?
□ Work out the meaning and relate this to the grammar.
□ Take away or add some ’little’ words. What effect does this have? For instance, you can test for adjectives by putting a word such as too in front of them.
□ Do not be distracted by unknown words. It is possible to understand the grammar of concordance lines without understanding all of the meaning.
Now look at the activities below, which involve keywords which belong to more than one word class.
Activity C1.1
Look at the concordance lines below for round. Work out on which line it is
a) an adjective
b) an adverb
c) a noun
d) a preposition
e) a verb
Check the meanings associated with each word class in a dictionary if necessary.
Example: Why don’t you come round for dinner? (Answer: adverb.)
1 ... [he], to the surprise of the gallery, turned the match round by winning a second set . . .
2. It was supposed to work the other way round.
3. The next step will be a round of preliminary talks. ...
4. This is a Perspex tube that runs round the outside rim of the table . . .
5. ... she paused briefly to hand round the plates and a bowl of crisp salad . . .
6. It was agreed to hold the sixth round of talks in January 1982.
7. ... a man’s mates might collect for him by passing round a hat.
8. We told him weeks ago that we were writing round trying to get a mortgage.
9. ... [he] had been stung by the nettles that grew thickly round the
boathouse.
10. ... the post of Director was advertised but first time round was not filled . . .
11. ... [she] could be out of the second round of the Four Nations tennis championship . . .
12. Woil stared round at him and seemed to be in a state of shock . . .
13. ... relaxation techniques I had learned in drama, sending round my mental supervisor . . .
14 ... [they managed] to round up stragglers and ensure no one got lost.
15. He strode round the room, shouting: ’I am number one . . .
Activity C1.2
A possible synonym for round is around. Try replacing round with around in the above lines. Where is it possible? Do you notice anything about these lines?
Activity C1.3
Look at the concordance lines below. First of all think of the word classes which are possible for back and then work out which class is shown in each line. Which word class do you think will be most common?
1. All he owned were the clothes on his back and a few cassettes . . .
2. They walked back into the main bar . . .
3. ... governments have been considering action to cut back on emissions of greenhouse gases . . .
4. Back at the office you said something about a secret . . .
5. [he] walked past her up the narrow passage and into the back ... kitchen.
6. You stopped being angry with them and held back your furious rage.
7. Dolly was wedging the doorhandle with the back of a chair . . .
8. I’ll be back for dinner . . .
9. … and now he thumped George on the back with great bonhomie . . .
10. ... she managed to bring them both back to earth again.
11. What they often get instead is a pat on the back, a stack of reading matter . . .
12. She hurried back down the stairs . . .
13. ... through the lounge into the kitchen at the back.
14. ... as one goes further back through the geological record . . .
15. Fold back the ear flap, and briskly pull out one or two hairs . . .
Comments
Activity C1.1:
Although we generally think of round as an adjective, its absence from the lines reflects how rare it is. Adverbs (lines 1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13), nouns (3, 6, 11) and prepositions (4, 9, 15) are in fact more common. It can also be a verb, usually a phrasal one, as is the case with line 14 (round up). If you had trouble with 5, 7 and 13, see B7 on phrasal verbs/multi-word verbs.
Note how the difference in word class is generally associated with a difference in meaning. However, it can be argued that there is little, perhaps no, difference between the adverb and preposition meanings, apart from the absence or presence of the noun phrase following the preposition. For example, if we remove the noun phrase from line 15, there is very little difference:
he strode round / he strode round the room
but the same is not possible for line 9:
nettles that grew thickly round (?) / nettles that grew thickly round the boathouse
Activity C1.2:
The answer is lines 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15. These correspond exactly to the instances of adverbs and prepositions. This could be seen as another reason for grouping them.
Activity C1.3:
We tend to think of back as a noun meaning a part of the body (just like we think of round as an adjective), but again adverbs are more common, as the lines reflect:
adverb: 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 15
noun: 1, 7, 9, 11, 13 (Note that 13 does not refer to part of a body.)
adjective: 5
Back can also be a verb: Will you back me?