Applied linguistics 19/1 45-72

Oxford University Press 1998

Verbs Observed: A Corpus-driven

Pedagogic Grammar1
*
SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS
University of Birmingham

INTRODUCTION
Current developments in English language teaching methodology and
syllabus design present a challenge to the writers of pedagogic grammars
Because of the more widespread use of electronically-stored corpora among
teachers and researchers alike, there is a growing expectation that descriptions
of language will be based on quantities of authentic data rather than on a
course writer's intuitions and/or language prejudices Because of the rapidprocessing requirements of task-based methodologies (J Willis 1996), there is
a need for a grammar that addresses fluency as well as accuracy Because of
the emphasis on lexis as the crucial element in language learning, there is a
need for a grammar that is lexically based and that can be integrated fully into
a lexical syllabus This paper proposes a pedagogic grammar of English that is
derived from substantial quantities of naturally-occurnng data, is lexicallybased, and that lends itself to exploitation by text-based and concordancebased consciousness-raising techniques
It is by now very well documented that large, electronically-stored corpora
provide an opportunity to study and describe language in ways that are
quantitatively and qualitatively different from the models and descriptions
that have previously been available In particular, grammarians using corpora
can offer more comprehensive and authontative descriptions of the language
than has hitherto been possible, because more data is available for

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This paper describes the outcome of a project to code the complementation

patterns of all the verbs in Collins COBUILD English Dictionary (1995) COBUILD
stands for 'Collins and Birmingham University International Language
Database' The coding is based on the Bank of English corpus at COBUILD and
uses a simple notation based on words and word-classes rather than traditional
functional categories The result of this exercise is a list of verb patterns, with a
complete list of all the verbs in a corpus of 250 million words that have each
pattern It is found that the verbs that share a pattern fall into groups based on
meaning This grammar is the first pedagogic grammar to integrate syntax and
lexis using corpus data The grammar is used to explore traditional grammatical
categones such as Object, Complement, etc These are found to be inadequate
to account for the actual behaviour of verbs Finally, the paper explores the
possibility of using a pattern grammar to analyse naturally-occurring discourse

46 VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

Observing patterns

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examination This in itself offers new insights into, for example, the relative
distributions of certain grammatical features (see, for example, Sinclair 1991,
Halhday 1993, Biber 1988) In addition, corpora and the analytical tool of
concordancing have prompted some grammarians to view grammar as a
systematic collection of observations about the way words behave rather than
as a set of abstractions into which words may be fitted {see, for example,
Sinclair 1991, Francis 1993, 1994, Hunston 1995, and the debate between
Owen 1993 and Francis and Sinclair 1994)
This paper reports on a project to describe comprehensively the verbs that
are defined in the Collins COBUILD English Dictionary (1995) (hereafter
CCED) In turn, this is part of a larger project to descnbe words belonging to
all word-classes in a similar way The corpus used in the project was the 250
million word Bank of English at COBUILD 2 At the time that the research was
done, about 7 5 % of the corpus comprised written data, 25% was spoken,
71% of the data was from Britain, 2 5 % from the United States and 4% from
Australia
The first stage of the project was to descnbe the complementation patterns
of each verb occurring frequently enough in the corpus to be defined in
CCED 3 The descriptions themselves will be demonstrated, in some detail
below, the aim was to provide a descriptive apparatus that was as transparent
as possible, and which was flexible enough to cope with verb behaviours that
had not previously been descnbed This part of the work was carried out
during the compilation of CCED The second stage was to make generalizations about each of those patterns In particular, it was noted that verbs
shanng a pattern also shared aspects of meaning, this enabled us to provide
lists of verbs that are useful, in that the verbs in each list share not only a
pattern of behaviour but also a meaning The result is a pedagogic grammar of
the verbs of English as exemplified in our corpus (Francis et al 1996)

The basic concept in our pedagogic grammar is the 'pattern' To demonstrate

the meaning of this, we shall use the concordance lines below, showing a
sample of 30 instances of the verb consider (this is the lemma consider,
compnsing the forms 'consider', 'considers', 'considered' and 'considering')
The lines are arranged according to the type of group,'phrase or clause that
follows the verb in each concordance line, that is, according to the behaviour
of the verb

SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS

1
2
3
4

economy-minded Congress, no longer

it clearly unconstitutional and we
rraless foods, many researchers now
that to provide condoms could be

consider a Philippine base to be a

consider it to be a flagrant violatio
consider them to be potentially harmf
considered to be promoting homosexual

5
6
7
8

indecently flattered He does not

encourages the grief process by
arts and sciences It is valid to
To desecrate a holy spring is

consider himself a celeb, retains the

considering it a normal part of human
consider memory the oldest mental'ski
considered profanity Severe chastise

47

9 levous by premeditation many laws consider a premeditated crime more se

10 history when few achievements were considered greater than writing a bea
11 tterly. Howadays, of course, he is considered strange for questioning Am

15
there is no scriptural reason to consider women as inferior Created i
16 ranging species, it may be best to consider them as beneficial and only
17 nder-estimated anyway but when you consider it's concentrated on the str
16
the social costs If we do not consider that the costs are worth pay
19 UN High Commissioner for Refugees, considered that moat asylum seekers 1
20
21
22
23
24

of the victims, who they will

says her government will
European Community countries are
Act, the government would have to
general's office says the study

consider a private prosecution of the

consider a proposal from West Germany
considering a proposal that the organ
consider carefully the law which woul
considered everything from malaria to

25
s birthday, we thought we'd consider what the Revolutionary War m
26
Morris Was that a factor in considering whether or not to bring t
27 with smaller peps should seriously consider whether to remain in the
28
say privately that they are considering asking to join the 59-dea
29
Faldo claimed he had not even considered missing the halfway cut fo
30 spread over into Austria, they are considering providing free electricit

In lines 1-3, the verb is followed by a noun group (realized by a pronoun in

lines 2 and 3) and a to-infinitive clause (that is, a clause introduced by an
infinitive preceded by to) Line 4 shows the passive pattern an auxiliary and
past participle of the verb consider, followed by a to-infinitive clause For the
sake of economy, we use the symbols 'V for verb group (capitalized because
the verb is the word under scrutiny here), 'n' for noun group, and 'to-inf for
to-infinitive clause, and we allow the sequence of symbols to represent the
sequence of the groups and clauses themselves For lines 1-3, then, the
sequence 'V n to-inf represents the pattern, and we say that the verb consider
has the pattern 'V n to-inf For line 4, it is necessary to show the passive
formed by the verb be and a past participle We therefore use the sequence 'be
V-ed' For line 4 the complete pattern sequence is 'be V-ed to-inf
In lines 5-7, the verb is followed by two noun groups, one after the other 4
This is represented by the pattern sequence 'V n n' Line 8 is an example of
the passive a passive verb followed by one noun group, or 'be V-ed n' In lines
9-10, the verb is followed by a noun group and then an adjective group This
pattern is 'V n adj' Line 11 is the passive 'be V-ed adj'
In lines 12-13, the verb is followed by a noun group and then by a
prepositional phrase beginning with as In other words, the verb is followed by

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12 gave these lectures in Aberdeen, I consider Aberdeen as an example Aber

13 s long tradition Approaches which consider gender as the central oppre
14
why the region should be considered as a special case foe extr

48 VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

consider /ksnsidy/ consider*, considering,

considered
I If you consider a person or thing to be some
thing, you have the opinion that this is what they
ire We don t consider our customers to be mere
consumers, we consider them to be our friends. I
had always considered myself a strong, competent
woman. The paper does not explain why fontgn
ownership should be considered bad. I consider
activities such as jogging and weightlifting as unnatural. Barbara considers that pet shops which
sell customers these birds are very unfair
2 If you consider something, you think about it VEM
carefully The government Is being asked to consid
^*
era plan to fix the date of the Easter break. You do v*i
have to consider the feelings of those around you.
Consider how much you can afford to pay for a
course, and what is your upper limit
3 If you arc considering doing something, you in VEM
tendtodolt.buthavenotyetmadeaftnaldeclsion " * * *
whether to do It I had seriously considered telling v-**
the story from the point of view of the wives v n
Waterspora enthusiasts should consider htnng a
weuuitaswetlasatijejacket
They are considering
tht launch oftheir own political party
4 You say all things considered to indicate that MUSE.
you are making a judgement after taking til the
facts into account Ml things considered, I think
you haim behaved marvellously in coming here.
5 Sec also considered comldertrm

Figure I

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a noun group, the preposition as and another noun group This is represented
by 'V n as n' (The as is italicized showing that it represents an actual lexical
item, not a class of words ) Line 14 shows the passive 'be V-ed as n' Lines 1516 show a similar pattern, except that as is followed by an adjective group
instead of a noun group The pattern is 'V n as adj'
In lines 17-19, the verb is followed either by a clause beginning with the
word that or by a simple declarative clause These two patterns could be
treated separately, but because almost no verbs use one pattern but not the
other we subsume both in the pattern 'V that'
Lines 20-24 show the verb followed by a noun group (the pattern 'V n')
while lines 25-27 show the verb followed by a wh-clause, that is, a clause
introduced by a wh-word (the pattern 'V wh') The final group of concordance
lines, lines 28-30, show the verb followed by a clause beginning with a
present participle The pattern is 'V -ing'
CCED distinguishes three main senses of consider the first sense may be
summanzed as 'to have an opinion about', the second sense is briefly 'to think
about', and the third sense is 'possibly intend to do something' (A fourth
sense deals with the phrase all things considered ) In the concordance lines
given above, lines 1-19 illustrate sense 1, lines 20-27 illustrate sense 2, and
lines 28-30 illustrate sense 3 In the dictionary, the codes for the grammar
patterns associated with each sense are shown alongside the block of
examples (see Figure 1) For reasons of space in the dictionary entry, the
passive patterns are not given Also, the two patterns 'V n n' and 'V n adj' are
shortened to 'V n n/adj', and the two patterns 'V n as n' and 'V n as adj' are
shortened to 'V n as adj/n' (the adjective group pattern being more frequent
than the noun group one in this case)

SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS

49

Here are similar concordance lines for another verb, insist

it impossible to trust. Laurence
t, to avoid a boycott, the group
have to go The troubled Premier
ago in New York The ambassador
in Crewe, Cheshire, bosses
esterday (Sunday) decided not to
lapse Mr Kravchuk, however, has
as leader. The paper says they
ead Surrounded by reporters, he
s friend the prime minister, who
e asked to leave - The pair, who
Brooke remained silent but aides

insisted he was being punished for Geor

insisted he take a stand to overturn
insists he is not ready to step down
insisted it was the first time ever tha
insisted no more redundancies were plan
insist that its members must support Mr
insisted that he maintained constant
insisted that despite poor results m
insists that the only reason he's lunch
insisted that the heritage secretary h
insist they will make no deal with the
insisted they were ready to deal with h

13 was smart and demanding, he had

14 en abandoned and that they would
15 uldn't give him a game, but he'd
16
treasurer, Kathleen Brown, to

insisted on clear thinking and had litt

insist on a parliamentary vote on whe
insist on a battle and then they'd set
insist on ]ust that, and is atill rated

17 a and the other furniture they'd insisted on taking and destroying He s

IB and, despite the lack of funds, insisted on dressing him in clothes sen
19 ch upheld the council's right to insist on housing applicants producing
20 horses are his babies he always insists on them being treated very
21 King of Corinth in Euripides, he insists on Jason marrying his daughter
22
23

to our potential ' Illingworth insisted

'I want us to have an England
it shouldn't be successful,' he insists There's a serious side to Clar

24 on? Oh you here Pete? OK, if you insist Come on, let's get this show on
25 ed to talk him out of it, but he insisted They were unahppy when they g

Lines 1-12 show the verb followed by a clause with or without the word that
(the pattern 'V that') In lines 13-16, the verb is followed by the preposition
on and a noun group {the pattern 'V on n'), while in lines 17-18 the
preposition is followed by a clause beginning with a present participle {the
pattern 'V on -ing') Lines 19-21 show another variation on this theme the
preposition on is followed by a noun group and then by a present participle
(the pattern 'V on n -ing') Lines 22-23 show insist used with a direct quote
(the pattern 'V with quote') The final pattern for this verb in the corpus is
shown in lines 24-25, where insist is used by itself {the pattern 'V')
The above examples demonstrate our pnnciples in denoting patterns Our
aim is to give a sequence of symbols that will adequately represent the surface
patterning of groups of similar concordance lines The minimum of analysis is
usedthere is no indication, for example, as to whether a noun group
following a verb is an Object or a Complement Groups and clauses are
identified, however, and are generalized into noun group, adjective group,
that-clause, wh-clause, '-ing' clause and so on Abbreviations are used to
represent these groups and clauses, such as 'n' for 'noun group', 'wh' for 'whclause' and so on Specific lexical items are shown in italics, and the word
which is the focus for the pattern (the verb, in most of the examples given in
this paper) is represented by a capital letter (V)
The following kinds of patterns have been identified (Francis et al 1996)

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1
2
3
4
5
6
I
8
9
10
II
12

50 VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

More about patterns

In CCED, every sense of every word is annotated with the set of patterns that
the sense commonly occurs with, as in Figure 1 The lack of traditional
analysis in this annotation is an advantage, as no artificial-hmit is placed upon
the constituent elements of a pattern (See below for further discussion of
traditional grammatical analysis ) A pattern may be composed of quite a
number of elements, such as 'V on n ing' (e g
he insists on Jason marrying his
daughter), or 'V it adj to-inf (e g She had not felt it necessary to tell him), or it
might contain elements expressed by lexical items, such as 'V way prep' {e g
he talked his way into the post of chief costume designer) Many patterns,
however, are more simple, and consist of only two elements, such as 'V that'
(eg We should insist that European aid funds focus more on helping people develop)
or 'V -ing' (e g I'm considering taking you on)
Some patterns have always been part of a traditional system of grammatical
analysis (see, for example, Hornby 1954, Quirk et al 1985) For example, the
patterns 'V to-inf and 'V -ing' ( e g / started to follow him up the stairs and Snow
began falling again) have long been part of every English teacher's repertoire
The very simple patterns 'V and 'V n' (e g His parachute collapsed and Two
young girls were collecting firewood) correspond to the traditional distinction
between intransitive and transitive verbs The traditional analyses of ObjectObject C o m p l e m e n t ( e g / had always considered myself a strong, competent
women) a n d Indirect Object-Object (e g They gave us T-shirts and stickers) are

both expressed by the pattern 'V n n'

Other patterns identified m CCED, however, are less familiar to the language

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The verb stands by itself V

The verb is followed by a group of a particular kind V n, V adj, V adv
The verb is followed by a clause of a particular kind, or by a particular form
of a verb V that, V wh, V wh to-inf, V to-inf, V -ing, V inf, V -ed
The verb is followed by a prepositional phrase beginning with a named
preposition V about n, V as n, V at n, e t c , or by a prepositional phrase
beginning with one of several prepositions V prep
The verb is followed by a noun group and then by another group of a
particular kind V n n, V n adj, V n adv
The verb is followed by a noun group and then by a clause of a particular
kind, or by a particular form of a verb V n that, V n wh, V n wh to-inf, V n
to-inf, V n -ing, V n inf, V n -ed
The verb is followed by a noun group and then by a prepositional phrase
beginning with a named preposition V n about n, V n as n, V n at n, etc , or
by a prepositional phrase beginning with one of several prepositions V n
prep
The verb has the word it as part of the pattern, e g it V that, V it adj that,
etc
The verb has the word there as Subject there V n, there V prep/adv

SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS 51

r v c o w r /nkAvr/ recovers, recovering, racovered

1 When you recover from an illness or an Injury, veu
you become well again He is recovering from a vtam
knee injury A policeman was recovering in hospi- J
tal last night after being slabbed. Heisfulfyrecov
end from the virus
2 If you recover from an unhappy or unpleatani VEM
experience, you itop being upset by It a tragedy v*wn
from which hi never fully recovered. Her plane y
broke down and it was 18 hours before the got there
It took her three dayt to recover
& If something recover* from period of weakneu VEM
or difficulty, it Improve! or gen stronger again He w>
recovered from a 4-2 deficit to reach the auarUr- v
finals The ttockmarktt Index fell by 80% before It
began to recover
4 If you recover something that hai been lost or VEM
stolen, you find It or get it back. Police raided five ^ w *
houses In touth-east London and recovered stolen "
goods. Rescue teami recovered more bodies from
the rubble
5Ifyoufeovramentalorphrslcalstate,ftcomei VEM
backagaJn Forexample,ifyourcowrconsdoui lln
ness, you become conscious again Foramlnutehe vn
looked uncertain, and then recovered hit compa
sun She had a severe attack of asthma and it took
an hour to recover her breath. She never recovered
consciousness
61fyourccommoneythatyouhaveipent.lnvest- VEM
ed, or lent to someone, you get the same amount f * oue
back Legal action is being taken to try to recover the vn
money The British market alone was not large
enough to recover their costs of production

Figure 2

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teaching syllabus This is particularly true of patterns involving specific

prepositions, such as 'V about n' (eg / heard about the acadent) and 'V in n'
(e g The books abound in social comedy), and it is even more true of patterns in
which the verb is followed by a noun group and then by a prepositional phrase,
such as 'V n against W <e g You have to weigh the responsibilities against the rewards)
and 'V n into -ing' (e g His elder brother forced him into cutting his hair) Such
prepositions tend to be taught in an ad hoc way, if at all, with particular verbs
and prepositions being associated fairly randomly We shall argue below that
treating the preposition as part of a pattern allows for a more systematic and
helpful approach to the grammar of the verb
As we saw above with the patterns of the verbs consider and insist, some
senses of some verbs have several patterns Sense 1 of consider, for example,
has six patterns, not counting the passive ones As Sinclair (1991 53) points
out, however, it is also true that sense and pattern tend to be associated with
each other, such that a particular sense of a verb may be identified by its
pattern The verb recover has two main senses 'to get better' following an
illness or period of unhappiness, and 'to get back' something that was lost The
first of these senses has the patterns 'V from n' (e g He is recovering from a knee
injury) and ' V (e g // took her three days to recover), whilst the second has the
pattern "V n' (e g Police
recovered stolen goods) CCED divides each of these
two senses into three, covering metaphorical as well as literal meanings (see
Figure 2), but the pattern annotation shows where the major sense division
lies Pattern and meaning are strongly associated

52 VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

More about pattern and meaning

The close association between pattern and meaning is further demonstrated if
a large group of the verbs coded with a particular pattern in CCED are listed
For example,'here is an alphabetical list of 48 of the most common verbs,
including phrasal verbs, which have the pattern 'V as n' {that is, the verb, or
verb and particle, is followed by a prepositional phrase beginning with as)
act

end

end up
enlist
figure

finish
finish up
freelance
function
go down
masquerade
moonlight
operate
onginate
parade
pass
pose
practise
put up
qualify
rank

rate
remain
resign
run

serve
shape up
sign up
stand
stand down
start
start off
start out
step down
train
volunteer
work

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begin
come
come across
come out
come over
continue
count
double
double up
dress up
emerge

Even the most cursory glance indicates that this is not a random group of
verbs Many of them are close to synonyms, for example enlist and volunteer,
resign, stand down and step down, begin and start, end, end up, finish and finish up,
pass and qualify, masquerade and pose, act, function and serve It is possible to

highlight the similarities in meaning by dividing the verbs into 'meaning

groups' Here are six meaning groups derived from the list of verbs given
above {see Francis et al 1996 159-62) 5
Group 1 verbs concerned with working at a job
training for a job qualify, train
applying for a job enlist, put up, run, sign up, stand, volunteer
doing a job (in a particular way) freelance, moonlight, practise, serve, shape up,
work
leaving a job resign, stand down, step down

I can see it [an auditing course] coming in so useful when I'm practising as a doctor to
know what it's all about [British spoken]
Clinton returned to Little Rock
In the next few days, he is expected to resign as
governor and announce the first of his Cabinet appointments [US radiol

'SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS

53

Group 2 verbs concerned with having a role or function

act, double, double up, figure, function, operate, serve
Fleming emphasized that the departments within City Hall no longer function as
separate entities [US newspaper]

In most of these sports, Chinese athletes start as favourites [BBC radio)

He ended up as one of the people in Oxford living rough [British spoken]
Group 4 verbs concerned with being perceived in a particular way
come across, come over, count, emerge, go down, pass, qualify, rank, rate, shape up
But I would never pass as a Norwegian fisherman [Bntish magazine]
Your concern may come across as anger, and this won't help the situation [US nonfiction book]
Group 5 verbs concerned with trying to seem to be something you are
not
masquerade, parade, pose, dress up
So far as it was possible for a successful politician. Smith refused to pose as something
he was not [US non-fiction book]
We think it's terribly sweet if the three-year-olds dress up as a bnde and groom
[British spoken]

Group 6 verbs with other meanings

come, come out
Still, the news came as a shock [US newspaper]
/ came out as a lesbian when I was still in my teens [British magazine]
Note that some verbs, i e qualify, serve and shape up, appear in more than one
meaning group In these cases, a different sense of the verb appears in each
group
In all the patterns we have identified (Francis et al 1996), a similar division
into meaning groups can be made Here is another examplethe pattern 'V n
from n', which has four mam uses
(a) It is used with some verbs concerned with movement, either physical or
metaphorical, as in these examples As soon as a leaf is large enough, remove^
it from the plant [British magazine]
He noticed a figure detach itself from the

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Group 3 verbs concerned with beginning and ending

beginning begin, originate, start, start off, start out
continuing continue, remain
ending end, end up, finish, finish up

54 VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

If we look at a complete list of all the verbs in CCED which have this pattern,
we can put them into groups which correspond to each of these main uses

Movement (either physical or metaphorical)

1 Verbs concerned with getting something from someone or something

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shadows of the building and make its way towards him [British fiction)
But
he was unable to extract any information from the three men [US fiction]
(b) It is used with some verbs concerned with the prevention of an activity
The pattern 'V n from -ing' is also used with these verbs Here are some
examples It is in the interests of alt nations to prevent any state from marching
into another and taking it over [BBC radio]
Religion these days seems to just
divert people from what religion is about [Bntish spoken]
(c) It is used with some verbs concerned with keeping or making something
safe or hidden, as in these examples The body's immune system protects us
from both infection and cancer [British non-fiction book)
/ never did conceal
anything from the Congress [US radio]
A schoolgirl who helped rescue two
tiny sisters from their blazing home was hailed a heroine yesterday [British
newspaper]
(d) It is used with some verbs concerned with making something, as in this
example Boxgrove was a sandy beach on which Stone Age humans
manufactured cutting tools from flints [British magazine]

acquire, borrow, cadge, charm, choose, coax, collect, confiscate, conjure, copy, crib, cull,
deduce, demand, derive, distil, draw, exact, excerpt, extort, extract, extrapolate, gain,
get, glean, hustle, infer, inherit, learn, make, milk, plunder, poach, propagate, pump,
salvage seek, select, solicit, steal, take, wheedle, wrest, wring

2 Verbs concerned with removing something

absent, abstract, avert, banish, chase, clear, clip, crop, cut, deduct, depart, dislodge,
dismiss, disqualify, divert, drain, eject, eliminate, erase, evict, excise, exclude, exile,
expunge, extract, extradite, flick, hound, mop, pare, peel, pluck, prize, pull, purge,
remove, roust, shave, skim, squeeze, strike, strip away, subtract, take, take away, tear
away, turn out, unload, wipe, withdraw
Note that absent and tear away are always used with a reflexive pronoun (at
least in our corpus) you absent yourself from a place, or tear yourself away
from something
3 Verbs concerned with transferring someone or something from one
place to another
divert, forward, pass, promote, relay, send, transfer, transplant, transpose

4 Verbs concerned with separating two things

alienate, decouple, demerge, detach, differentiate, disassociate, disconnect, disengage,

SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS 55

disentangle, dissociate, distinguish, divide, divorce, filter out, isolate, mark off, mark
out, part, separate, separate out, set apart, shut off, tell, wall off, wean

Prevention
5 Verbs concerned with stopping someone from doing something
ban, bar, debar, deter, discourage, dissuade, enjoin, inhibit, keep, preclude, prevent,
prohibit, proscribe, restrain, restrict, stop, warn away

Keeping or making safe or hidden

7 Verbs concerned with hiding or concealing
conceal, hide, keep, withhold
8

Verbs to do with

protecting

cocoon, cushion, insulate, protect, safeguard, shade, shield

9 Verbs concerned with freeing or rescuing someone
deliver, excuse, exempt, extricate, free, heal, liberate, pluck, release, rescue, save, spare
Making something
10 Verbs concerned with making something from something
carve, construct, create, fabricate, fashion, hew, machine, make, manufacture, print,
produce

In addition, there is a small group of verbs which are concerned with saying
that someone is not guilty of a cnme or misdemeanour
11 absolve, exonerate
There are also a few verbs which have meanings not covered by any of these
groups
12 deflect, dispossess, draw, omit, rouse, take away
The division into meaning groups has been done intuitively, with the aim of
making each group as sensible as possible in order to help the learner associate
meaning with pattern and so remember which verbs have which patterns
The groups are, however, always open to reinterpretation by other
researchers It would be possible to argue, for example, that in groups 1-4
of 'V n from n', the verbs indicating physical movement should be separated
from those indicating metaphorical movement However, although the actual
divisions in the meaning groups are arguable, and therefore not truly
rephcable, it is also true that, given the list of verbs with a particular pattern

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6 Verbs concerned with changing a focus of attention or course of action

deflect, divert, sidetrack

56 VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

as a whole, any observer would be able to group the verbs in some sensible
way This supports our basic tenet, that patterns are closely associated with
meaning and that lexis and syntax are not separate as areas of language study
We will return to this point below

Combinations of patterns

Pattern and transitivity

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Levin (1993) has noted that verbs which share a meaning may share not just
one pattern, but two or more For example, many of the verbs meaning 'think
or talk about someone or something as having particular qualities' have both
the pattern 'V n as adj' and the pattern 'V n as n' (
described the death as
unfortunate
describe their employment as a job) (Francis et al 1996 592-3)
Another large group of verbs have the patterns 'V n as n' and 'V n n' (Francis
eial 1996 593-4, cf Levin 1993 78) Some of these have the meaning'think
or talk about someone or something' (branded the jobless as layabouts
branded her an opportunist), others mean 'put into a job or role' (elected him as
prime minister
elect me President) A much smaller group of verbs have all
three patterns 'V n as adj', 'V n as n', and 'V n n' These are brand, consider,
designate, label, rate An even smaller group has these patterns plus 'V n adj'
brand, consider, label, rate (labels herself as fat
label him as a psychopath
labelled her a saint
labelled his work naive)
Figure 3 shows the distribution of patterns for a selection of the verbs
involved

Although the emphasis on verb pattern found in both Levin's work and our
own represents a break with tradition, our attempt to analyse verb
complementation does not Traditional valency grammar has always categorized verbs according to whether they are intransitive, monotransitive,
ditransitive, and so on (see, for example. Quirk et al 1985 1168 ff), using
functional categones such as Object, Complement, Adjunct, and Object
Complement In some cases, such an analysis has much to offer For example,
we have already mentioned that the pattern 'V n n' has two distinct
functional analyses the two noun groups may both be Objects {one of them is
sometimes, misleadingly we think, termed the 'Indirect' Object6), as with
verbs such as give, bring, and tell, e g My parents gave me a microscope kit,
alternatively, the first noun group may be an Object and the second an Object
Complement, as with verbs such as call (in one sense), elect and adjudge, e g
My children called him Uncle Frankie Such an analysis makes very clear the
difference in the relation between the two noun groups, relations which are
dependent on the verb used It is also helpful to distinguish between a Verb
with Object and a Verb with Complement, as in The children ate the biscuits and
She became a full-time singer, both of which have the pattern 'V n'
We have already mentioned that we found it unsatisfactory to take the

SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS

V n adj

accept

V n m adj

yes

characterize

yes

yes

* yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes
yes

yes

yes

consider

yes

yes

count

yes

yes

declare

yes

yes

descnbe

yes

designate

yes

elect
label'

yes

pronounce

yes

yes

view

yes

yes

y es

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

yes

proclaim
yes

yes

yes
yes

yes

yes

yes

yes
yes

Figure 3

traditional functional categories as the primary means of coding verbs, as

such a pnori categones were too restnctive to account for all the patterns we
found in our corpus However, given the usefulness of distinctions such as
those discussed above, we have attempted to map all our patterns on to
traditional functional categones {Francis et at 1996) We did not aim to
replicate any one system of analysis, but to devise one that was internally
consistent, rephcable, and which seemed to accord with common sense The
problems we encountered in so doing convinced us that these traditional
categones can give an adequate picture of only a small proportion of the
verbs used in English For most of the patterns, and most of the verbs in our
corpus, it is extremely difficult to devise coherent cntena that will lead to a
satisfactory analysis, and even an analysis that was theoretically satisfactory
would not offer the user any more useful information than a coding of the
surface pattern does It is difficult to imagine, for example, how an analysis
of I'd love her to go into politics as 'Verb + Object' helps the learner to know

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certify

rate

Vnm

yes

acclaim
brand

Vn n

57

58

VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

how to use the verb love in this way more than the pattern description of 'V
n to-inf does
To corroborate this assertion, we will present two of the mam problems that
we encountered in mapping our verb patterns onto functional categories
There is insufficient space here to do justice to the many problems we have
met (see also, for example, Francis 1994), but we will present a very small
sample, in each case giving the cntena that we used to make often difficult
decisions
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Prepositional phrases

When a pattern consists of a verb followed by a prepositional phrase, there is a

problem as to how that prepositional phrase is to be analysed in functional
terms For example, in the clauses Let's separate into smaller groups or Bob
bumped into him or Theodora Adams dug into her purse (all with the pattern V int
n), what functional category/categories do into smaller groups, into him and into
her purse realize7 One possible solution .is to say that every prepositional
phrase is an Adjunct, but this presupposes a one-to-one relation between
form and functional category which is not the way English typically behaves
In addition, the noun group a normal, healthy child 'feels as though' it plays
much the same role in the clause he grew into a normal, healthy child as it does
in the invented equivalent he became a normal, healthy child (although grow into
and become are not interchangeable in context, of course) Similarly, a digestive
biscuit 'feels as though' it plays the same role both in Weatherby bit into a
digestive biscuit and in the invented Weatherby ate a digestive biscuit Using this
admittedly highly subjective, criterion, a normal, healthy child would be a
Complement in both of the clauses cited, and a digestive biscuit would be an
Object However, to use this terminology would be to mask the work that the
preposition into is undoubtedly doing We have therefore used the term
'prepositional Complement' to mean 'has the role of a Complement, but is
introduced by a preposition' and the term 'prepositional Object' to mean 'has
the role of an Object, but is introduced by a preposition' This leaves the
possibility of some prepositional phrases being Adjuncts, but not all
We can then apply the same criterion to identify a prepositional
Complement as is used to identify a Complement if the person or thing
construed by the noun group realizing the Subject is or becomes the person or
thing construed by the noun group following the preposition, then the
prepositional phrase is a prepositional Complement, as m these V into n
examples He grew into a normal, healthy child
The downturn has turned into
collapse The oil tanker has broken into several pieces
Distinguishing between a prepositional Object and an Adjunct is much
more difficult Some cases are clear Weatherby bit into a digestive biscuit ^eems
to be a kind of Object, whereas The guests crowded into the ornate gothic rooms
equally obviously an Adjunct But what about She burst into tears or Neurons in
the brain spark into life7 Passivization criteria are of little help there are no

SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS 59

Phase
'Phase' is the term used to refer to two verbs that constitute a single verb
group Certain patterns place two verbs in sequence with each other, most
notably 'V to-inf and 'V -ing' Verbs that have these patterns may be
considered candidates for being in phase with the other verb in the pattern
For example, many verbs such as begin, like, and promise all have the pattern
'V to-inf, occurring in two-verb sequences such as began to laugh, likes to
entertain, and promised to take It is possible that the two verbs in each sequence
are in phase and form a single verb group Similarly, the verbs finish, detest,
and regret have the pattern 'V -ing' and give nse to two-verb sequences such
as finished eating, detested being photographed, and regret having revealed, which

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examples of full passive forms such as a biscuit was bitten into and the rooms were
crowded into in the corpus, and we became increasingly uncomfortable with
relying on intuition regarding possible transformations In the absence of
absolute criteria, it is necessary to operate a default (Sinclair 1986 44), that is,
if one of the categones can be satisfactorily identified, everything that remains
is assumed to belong to the other category We have used the criterion of
'place or circumstance' to identify Adjuncts That is, to qualify as an Adjunct,
the prepositional phrase must indicate a place or circumstance, typically
answering the question 'where 7 ' or 'how 7 ' (For the use of question criteria in
language analysis, see Winter 1982 7-9 ) Everything else is a prepositionalObject Thus, the prepositional phrases in The guests crowded into the ornate
gothic rooms and Theodora Adams dug into her purse are Adjuncts (answenng the
question where?), whilst those in Weatherby bit into a digestive biscuit and She
burst into tears are prepositional Objects There remains the problem of
metaphorical places or circumstances, such as into life in Neurons in the brain
spark into life We have chosen to interpret examples such as this as Adjuncts,
but we would admit that this is open to debate This approach is defensible on
the grounds that it allows us to maintain a consistent methodology
The problems that have faced us in making these analyses illustrate the
challenges which arise when, because a large corpus of naturally-occurring
language is used, and because examples are not selected to illustrate a pnon
theones of transitivity, the analyst is faced with the full range of
complementation patterns verbs have, and the full range of verbs that have
those patterns As always when looking at large amounts of real data,
theoretical categories that appear neat and watertight dissolve before one's
eyes The point is not whether questions of functional analysis are difficult or
easy to solve, it is whether they are, ultimately, worth solving What examples
such as bit into a biscuit, crowded into a room, dug into her purse, burst into tears
and spark into life have in common is their pattern, 'V into n' Where they
differ is in the meaning group that the verb in each case belongs to We would
argue that this information alone is necessary and sufficient for a grammatical
understanding of the clauses

60 VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

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again are candidates for a phase analysis (It is of course well known that
many verbs have both patterns, either with a similar meaning, e g like, start,
or with a different meaning, e g remember, try )
The scope of 'phase' is variously defined The COBUILD English Grammar
(1990 184ff) considers any two verbs in sequence, that is, any two verbs
occurring in the patterns 'V to-mf or 'V -ing' to be in phase, whatever the
meaning relation between the two verbs In other words, there is no
possibility of two verbs occurring in either of those two patterns and not
being in phase The term 'phase', then, is being used as a simple shorthand for
the two patterns, rather than as an analytical category This alternative runs
into problems only when further functional analysis of the clause is
attempted When two verbs are in phase, any group, phrase, or clause that
occurs as the complementation pattern of the second verb in the verb group,
and that is analysed as belonging to a particular functional category with
relation to that verb, must also belong to that category with relation to the
whole verb group For example, in the clause She ate an apple, the noun group
an apple is part of the complementation pattern of the verb eatthe pattern is
'V n'and in functional terms is analysed as the Object If another verb is
used in front of eat, and if the two verbs are analysed as being in phase, the
apple must then be the Object of the whole verb group For example,-if the
clause is She began to eat an apple, and began to eat is considered to be in phase,
then the apple is the Object of began to eat If the clause is She promised to eat an
apple, and promised to eat is considered to be in phase, then the apple is the
Object of promised to eat It seems to us that whereas the first of these examples
yields a satisfactory analysis, the second does not In the first example, the
meaning of the verb group is essentially eat, with began to having a modal-like
function The question which would elicit the clause is 'What did she begin to.
do 7 ', not 'What did she begin 7 ' In the second example, the meaning of the
verb group is essentially promise, and it is not known whether the apple was
ultimately eaten or not The question eliciting the clause may be either 'What
did she promise to do 7 ' or 'What did she promise 7 ' The COBUILD,English
Grammar ignores the distinction between begin and promise As we shall argue
below, we agree in essence with this approach, but only if functional
categones themselves, including the notion of phase, are dispensed with
Meanwhile, we turn again to the distinction between begin and promise
Downing and Locke {1992 328-31), who use the term 'verbal group
complex' consider phase to apply to a more restricted set of relationships
They describe seven types of phased relationship which occur with a tomfinitive initiation (It began to rain), continuation (It continued to snow),
termination (/ have ceased to mind the harsh climate), appeanng or becoming real
(The sky seemed to get darker), attempting or not attempting (He tried to learn
Arabic), manner or attitude (/ regret to inform you), and modality (She happened
to see the accident) The first four of these also occur with an -ing form, as in It
began raining We have followed what we see to be the unifying factor behind
Downing and Locke's meaning categones, which is that when two verbs are

SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS 61

/ began to think that it was all a total waste of time [British spoken]
The diagnosis turned out to be her worst nightmare (British magazine]
What he learned served to improve the managerial skills needed in his present
employment [US non-fiction book]
He
omitted to mention one or two things that might have helped him [British
fiction]
/ regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost [US radio]
feet tend to swell if you sit still for too long [British non-fiction book]
These examples are not in phase
/ had planned to stay longer, but something came up [British fiction]
The police asked to use Keith's video as evidence [British magazine]
We expect to see her back on the screen in the autumn [British newspaper]
It worries me I like to feel secure [British spoken]'
He claims to have had no inside knowledge [British magazine]
Everyone was waiting to get off the ferry [Bntish spoken]
Some problems, however, remain Often a verb is used in different ways, that
is, in phase with another verb or not, depending on the context For example,
like to feel in the example above is not in phase just because the speaker likes
to feel secure does not mean she does feel so (or that she does not feel so) On
the other hand, in the following example we might say that the speaker does
entertain and does so willingly Alternatively we might argue that, as with /
like to feel secure, the speaker is simply expressing a preference
She likes to entertain, shop and go to the theatre
The problems with phase do not end here If omit to mention is analysed as in
phase, because it entails do not mention, then surely the sequence of verbs in
refrain from naming should also be analysed as in phase, as it entails do not
name Using this argument, we have analysed many of the patterns involving
a verb followed by a preposition and the present participle of a second verb as
phase Examples include 'V about -ing' (did not bother about digging), 'V from ing' {shrink from making), 'V in -ing' (participate in making), 'V on -ing' (insisted
on giving), 'V with -ing' (proceed with overhauling) The problem is that, as a
consequence of this, very similar clauses end up with very different analyses.

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in phase, the main purpose of the first verb is to indicate either that the action
realized by the second verb is done (and how it is done) or that it is not done
Our meaning groups are similar to theirs except that we put into one group
verbs of beginning, continuing or stopping an action, and we sub-divide the
'modality' group into several groups We also add a group including verbs
such as fail, forbear, neglect, and omit, which indicate that the action indicated
by the second verb is not done
We therefore analyse as in phase only those sequences of verbs which entail
either the doing or the not doing of the activity indicated by the second verb
Thus, these examples are in phase

62 VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

For example, in Sometimes we shrink from making decisions, the sequence of

verbs shrink from making is in phase, but in He never shrank from a fight, the

Patterns and pedagogic grammar

Functional categories of analysis anse out of a view of language that sees lexis
and grammar (or syntax) as separate features of language organization At its
worst, this is the 'slot and filler' approacha language consists of a set of
structures into which any lexical items can be dropped Such an extreme view
would be unlikely to be espoused currently by any linguist, but it is still the
case that most studies of syntax, while making some indication of lexical
restnctions on acceptability, do not explore in any comprehensive way the
interdependence of lexis and syntax
Unfortunately, the traditional study of syntax as a discrete system has for
many years influenced pedagogic grammars, that is, descriptions of English for
English Language Teaching Kerr {1996 95), for example, reports that inthe
view of many trainee EFL teachers 'Grammar exists independently of other,
aspects of language such as vocabulary and phonology' Like Lewis (1993),
Willis D and Willis J (1996 64) make a plea for 'perspectives on grammar
which take account of the interface between grammar and lexis'
This interface is precisely captured by the notion of pattern Our study of
verb patterns has suggested that it is impossible to descnbe verb complementation without focusing on lexis Any complementation pattern is
descnbable only in terms of the particular lexical items that have that
pattern, and the meaning groups that they fall into Without a reasonably
comprehensive list of the verbs that have a given pattern, no account of that
pattern can be given Similarly, if we take lexis as a starting point, information
about any lexical item must include the patterns it has It is, after all, a truism
of language teaching that a learner does not really 'know' an item of
vocabulary until he or she knows how it is used Most learners' dictionaries
acknowledge this fact and indicate syntactic information in some way in the
way the definition is phrased, in the examples, by explicit coding, or through
a mixture of these methods
Thus, because it is impossible to describe syntax without recourse to lexis or
lexis without recourse to syntax, we argue that syntax and lexis are
completely interdependent In fact, we would prefer ultimately not to use

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equivalent verb and noun group shrank from a fight cannot be in phase,
because no two verbs are involved
We must emphasize again at this point that, although we have arrived at
analyses which we believe to be reasonably replicable and internally
consistent, we do not consider those analyses to be particularly satisfactory
We do not really wish to make sharp distinctions between begin to eat, want to
eat, and promise to eat, for example, but we believe that these false distinctions
are forced upon us if we wish to allocate functional category labels It is
preferable by far not to use these labels and to use only the pattern as analysis

SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS 63

Patterns as analytic grammar

We have termed the description of English exemplified above a 'pedagogic
grammar' That is, it shows learners how the language they are learning
works Analytic, or theoretical grammars, on the other hand, perform a
different function They are tools for analysing bits of a language one already
knows with the aim of saying something useful about that bit of language In
this final section we will consider what the consequences are of treating a
pattern grammar as an analytic grammar
As an example, here is a sample of spontaneous dialogue taken from the
spoken corpus in the Bank of English {Both speakers are male Numbers
indicate parts of the tramcnpt that will be discussed below )

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the terms 'syntax' and 'lexis' at all, and to reserve the term 'grammar' for a
single descriptive system comprising words and patterns In other words, we
would prefer to speak of one system, rather than of two interdependent
systems However, for historical reasons, it is impossible to argue for such an
approach without using the notion of two systems as a starting point
In recent years, the dearth of innovation in pedagogic grammars has been
compensated for by a richness of research in lexis, notably, an awareness of
the centrahty of lexis to the language learning task {see, for example. Carter
and McCarthy 1988, Lewis 1993, D Willis 1990), an awareness of the
importance of collocation to language learning, and an awareness of multiword lexical 'chunks' that are used by native speakers of a language without
the need for 'internal processing' (Skehan 1996 41, Pawley and Syder 1983,
Nattinger and DeCamco 1992) Patterns, we argue, bridge the gap between
lexicahzations and rules. Some of the word sequences which can be explained
in terms of patterns may also be regarded as lexical chunks Examples include
It occurred to me/him/her that {'lit V ton that'), is remembered as ('V n as n'), do a
lot for ('V amount for n'), put (some) money into ('V n into n'), talk oneself out of
('V pron-refl out of n'), blast something open, cram something full, drive someone
mad {all 'V n adj') Other sequences which we descnbe in terms of their
pattern also have 'rule-governed' explanations These include the pattern 'V n
about n' with verbs such as dislike, feel, hate, like, love, and think, which usually
occur in questions or cleft constructions beginning with What, such as What I
loved about Gloria was her talent and her independence {Francis et a! 1996 340)
This suggests that the two types of system are not dichotomous, but are
alternative ways of viewing the same phenomenon Highly frequent
collocations, which appear as 'fixed phrases', are in fact simply extreme
cases of patterning, where the lexis is particularly restncted Utterances that
appear to have been produced by the operation of rules, such as yes/no
questions, may be seen simply as patterns which accept a relatively wide
range of lexical items

64 VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

AB
A
B.
A

A
B
A
B
A
B

Companng each utterance in this dialogue with the whole of the Bank of
English, we can show that although the conversation itself is unique, almost
none of the component parts of it is Nearly every utterance in this
conversation exemplifies the way one or more of the words in it often
behaves
Multi-word items

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B
A
B

[l]Now this is an interesting point [2]I wonder if you found this here
'cos I did at Sheffield
[3]Mm
[4]There was a tension between halls of residence and union people
[5]Mm
[6]Erm we tended to think of ourselves as not having to worry about
those freaks down there [7]Was there anything like that 7
[8]Oh yes
[laughs]
[9]Yes [lOlYes I mean we were seen really as erm not quite the oddities
but you know [11]I think there was an unspoken jealousy that there
were certain people in hall and others who were not
[12]Yes [pausel Mm
[13] And I suspect er although I'm not conscious of this we probably
treated the others a bit as second-class citizens
[14]Yes That's right
[laughs]
[15] Yeah
[16]Totally unjustified

To begin with, there are several multi-word lexical items in this dialogue, such
as halls of residence [4] and second-class citizens [13], common phrases such as oh
yes [8], that's right [14], I mean [10], you know [10], I think [11), and frequent
collocations, such as interesting point [1], totally unjustified [16] (In the Bank of
English there are 14,357 instances of adjective+/WMf and 284 instances of
interesting point, giving a t-score of 16 7813 There are 596 instances of
unjustified and 46 instances of totally unjustified, giving a t-score of 6 7775 A tscore of 2 or more is considered to be significant)

Verb patterns
Turning to the focus of this paper, the verbs, we can show the pattern used
with each verb in the dialogue In every case except one, the pattern is
shown in CCED as part of the typical behaviour of the relevant sense of the
verb concerned The pattern 'there V n prep', which occurs with were
(utterance 11) is not shown in CCED, but the omission is rectified in Francis
et al 1996

SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS 65

[1]
[2]

IS

Vn
V wh
Vn
there V n

V to-inf
Vofnas n/-ing
V about n
there V n

V that
be V-ed as n (V n as n)
V that
there V n

there V n prep
V prep
V that
Vadj
V n as n

Other patterns
Other words besides verbs have patterns, of course Here are the other
patterns in this dialogue, also coded in CCED
[4] tension
[13] conscious

N between pl-n
ADJ ofn

In addition, there are some commonly-occurring patterns that do not attach

to individual words but to whole phrases There are two examples in this
dialogue / wonder
'cos and not quite
but
[2]

I wonder

'cos

The combination / wonder and its complementation pattern is often followed

by a clause beginning with because The because clause gives a justification for
the indirect question This pattern occurs a minimum of 34 times out of 4,718
instances of / wonder in the Bank of English 7 These concordance lines show
some examples
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

here we were and so on

rnor Clinton there, and
ervaluing his own' And
pretty good really erm
e when I apply for jobs
d me forward. <F01> Cos
d cope Virginia says
French and Wilson then

I wonder
I wonder
I wonder
I wonder
I wonder
I wonder
I wonder
I wonder

where Agnes and I were Because she's qu

about that because actually the economy
who the writer of this is because it gui
where she is 'cos she's <F01> I know it'
if there is now 'cos they've got so many
whether you got the encouragement 'cos l
how you'd cope? Because it sounds to me
if we saw the same film, because to me B

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wonder
found
[4) was
[6] tended
think
worry
[71 was
[10] mean
were seen
[11] think
was
were
were not
[ B ] suspect
'm not
treated

66 VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

This co-occurrence of / wonder and because is not a complementation pattern of

the verb wonder, but might be termed a discourse pattern belonging to the
phrase / wonder
[10] not quite

but

This is another possible discourse pattern It occurs a minimum of 162 times

out of a total of 6,229 instances of not quite in the Bank of English The
concordance lines below show some examples
Mary Winga. They're
ar the Colorado line,
frais you will have,
she had a nice voice
more clearly defined,
y, twenty-four? Voice

not
not
not
Not
not
not

quite
quite
quite
quite
quite
quite

a cast of thousands, but you'll hear a lo

a ghost town, but a place beginning to
a calorie-free dressing, but almost
Aled Jones, but certainly musical The fi
Cambridge, but certainly not Albion, whoa
flint-hard yet but ]ust this side of it

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1
2
3
4
5
6

What this commentary suggests is that relative frequency of co-occurrence,

which is said to ease the psychological task of language processing, is not a
phenomenon that is restricted to certain lexical phrases, however numerous
these might be, but might be extended to patterns in general In other words,
the'idiom principle' (Sinclair 1991 110) might be said to imply, not only that
certain sequences of lexical items commonly occur (interesting point, halls of
residence, I mean, I think, second-class citizens) but that certain sequences of word
and word-typepatternsalso commonly occur (think of reflexive pronoun
as -ing clause, be negative conscious o/noun group) Moreover, this second type
of co-occurrence plays a major role in organizing each utterance Unsurprisingly, there is no part of the analysed dialogue that is not accounted for in
terms of being part of the pattern of one or more of the lexical items in it

Atypical patterning

Comparing our dialogue with a corpus, we can show what is infrequent as

well as what is frequent In utterance [11)/ think there was an unspoken jealousy
that there were certain people in the hall and others who were not, the use of jealousy
in the pattern 'N that' is uncommon, in that out of 2,473 occurrences of
jealousy in the Bank of English, only 9 have the noun followed by appositive
that {Francis 1993 lists some of the many hundreds of nouns that occur much
more frequently in this pattern, such as announcement, assertion, observation,
recommendation, suggestion, assumption, conviction, hypothesis, knowledge, opinion,
view, assessment, conclusion, inference, speculation, anger, astonishment, fear, sorrow,
and surprise)
The ranty of jealousy that suggests that in our text the speaker is using a
pattern creatively Creativity in the association of words with patterns is
presumably one of the ways in which language change takes place It is
possible that the chances of an unusual usage being understood and judged to
be unremarkable may be increased if the word is used as part of a longer.

SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS

67

commonly-occurring sequence In this case jealousy that occurs as part of a

sequence that involves the introductory there was and the adjective unspoken
This lengthy pattern sequence ('there + form of be + noun group + thatclause') does not occur with any great frequency, but it does have a noticeable
24 occurrences tn the Bank of English Here are all the concordance lines
Agreement amongst the women that
agreement that big banks would n
agreement that he and Viv would '
agreement in the village that we
assumption that those who are
assumption that only a man can
assumption, if the child chooses
assumption among other family
belief about AIDS, similar to
but never justified implication
conflict that there shouldn't be
fear that this revival wasn't
feeling of disquiet' that France
feeling among everyone m the
jealousy that there were certain
promise that these diffuse
rule that nothing ever went beyon
understanding that they should no
understanding that some
understanding among women that
understanding between brother and

Here we find a range of nouns used, the most frequent being agreement,
assumption, and understanding Jealousy that is still rare, but we would speculate
that it increases its acceptability by being part of the longer pattern

Pattern frequency
This short piece of naturally-occurring dialogue illustrates a variety of verb
patterns, such as 'V adj', 'V that', 'V wh', 'V to-inf, 'V n as n', 'there V n', as
well as introducing noun patterns (N between pl-n), adjective patterns (ADJ of
n), and the more nebulous concept of discourse pattern (/ wonder because,
not quite
but) One of the questions that arises from considenng the role of
pattern in text is how frequent certain patterns are, and in particular how
frequently one can expect to encounter patterns other than the very familiar
'V, 'V n', 'V that' and 'V to-inf This question cannot yet be answered, but it
is noticeable that this dialogue does contain no fewer than three examples of
verb patterns with as ('V ofn as -ing', 'be V-ed as n', 'V n as n') These are
Speaker A
Speaker B
Speaker B

think of ourselves as not having to worry

we were seen as not quite the oddities
treated the others as second-class citizens

These examples of these patterns all illustrate the general meaning of 'having
an opinion about someone' or 'doing something which indicates that you
have an opinion about someone' It is perfectly possible to indicate this
meaning with other patterns, however, notably 'V that' (We thought we were

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he United States there was an unspoken

ike to say so publicly, there is unspoken
d with hia parents, there was an unspoken
villager said 'There was an unspoken
the poor of London, there is an unspoken
recedent There is, however, the unspoken
other people*do not, there is an unspoken
as can women There was also an unspoken
metaphor There is a substantial unspoken
the question there is always an unspoken
ationship suffered There was an unspoken
t and irritable and there was an unspoken
go Officials said there was an 'unspoken
actively fear him, there was an unspoken
t you know I think there was an unspoken
f King's fantasies, there was an unspoken
e sexual instincts, there was an unspoken
stories like that, there was an unspoken
o moved away There is always an unspoken
or ingratiating
There is an unspoken
bat an eyelid ' There was an unspoken

68

VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

oddities), 'V as if (We behaved as if they were second-class citizens) and 'V n n' (They

considered us oddities) Future research might investigate to what extent the

coincidence of pattern use is significant It is worth hypothesizing that
speakers who are accommodating to one another (Giles and Coupland 1991
60 ff) may 'copy' each other's patterns, even if the lexis they use (think, see,
treat) is different

Pattern flow

We tended to think of ourselves as not having to worry about those freaks down there

This utterance begins with the pattern 'V to-inf, based on the verb tend Then
the second verb in that pattern, think, begins the pattern 'V ofn as -ing' The
final element of that pattern, having to worry begins yet another pattern'V
about n'based on the verb worry Whenever a word that is part of a pattern
has a pattern of its own, this phenomenon of 'pattern flow' occurs As a result,
there are two ways to analyse the patterns in this utterance one that
emphasizes the paniculate nature of the patterns, and another that
emphasizes their wave-like nature (Pike 1959, Halhday 1982) The particulate
analysis looks something like this
V

to-inf

tended

to think of ourselves as not having to worry about those freaks

down there

ofn

as -ing

think

of ourselves

as not having to worry about those freaks down there

,/

not having to worry

about n

about those freaks down there

Alternatively, an analysis which drew attention to the 'flow' of patterns might

look something like this

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Although a descriptive grammar must deal with patterns in isolation, when

that grammar is applied to analysis, what is striking is the way that the
patterns flow into one another In other words, each utterance moves from
one pattern to the next As an example, consider utterance [6] in the sample
dialogue

SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS

69

tended to think of ourselves as not having to worry about those freaks down there
V

to-inf
V

of n

as

-ing
V

about

Another example of a 'flow' analysis is this representation of utterance [10]

as not quite the oddities but you know

that
be

V-ed

as

n
not quite

but

The flow analysis shows a form of language that is, in Halhday's terms,
choreographic rather than crystalline (Halhday 1987) Unlike Halhday's
analyses, however, this is based on the pattern rather than the clause, and
in fact the importance of the clause to grammatical analysis seems to
disappear In Sinclair's {personal communication) terms, what may matter
is not where a unit of analysis finishes, but only where it starts

CONCLUSION
In this paper we have outlined an approach to the descnption of language that
unites lexis and grammar We have shown that lexical items have descnbable
patterns, and that words shanng the same patterns tend to fall into groups
based on shared aspects of meaning This in turn suggests that the patterns
themselves can be said to have meanings, and there is some evidence that the
use of a lexical item with a pattern that it does not commonly have is a
resource for language creativity and, possibly, for language change
This approach to grammar is, we believe, helpful to language learners
because it focuses on the surface behaviour of individual words The coding of
the surface behaviour, with a minimum of interpretation into categories, is
intended to be transparent and therefore accessible to learners It must be said
that learners will need help initially to decipher codings such as 'V n from n/ing', but the principle, once grasped, is straightforward enough, and it seems
to us that a learner is unlikely to find a coding such as 'V+O' or 'v trans' any
more helpful than our preferred 'V n' The focus on individual lexical items,
and the attempt to provide exhaustive lists of verbs with a particular pattern,
is intended to enable the learner to have confidence in whether a particular
usage is correct or not Our lexical approach to grammar answers two

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I mean we were seen

70 VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

(Revised version received April 1997)

NOTES
1 The authors would like to dedicate this paper
to the memory of Eugene Gatt Winter, who
was an enthusiastic and supportive consultant of the project, as well as a dear fnend
His death in December 1996 was a great loss
to the world of Applied Linguistics
2 The Bank of English is constantly growing
and statements about its size and proportions quickly become inaccurate At the
time that the research for this paper was
done, it was approximately 250 million
words At the time of writing (May 1996),
it is approximately 290 million words, and
the proportion of spoken data and data from
Australia has increased In this paper we
will treat the Bank of English as reasonably
representative of certain varieties of Eng-

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learners' questions 'How is this word used 7 ' and 'What other words are used
in the same way 7 '
A grammar of this type is, however, a reference book rather than a
coursebook, and as such is as hkely to be used by teachers as by learners We
would argue that a pattern-based approach to word behaviour is likely to be
useful to teachers devising consciousness-raising activities, particularly those
based on authentic written or spoken texts The pattern is, we suggest, a
valuable focus for the learner's attention In addition, the availability of lists of
words which would otherwise be difficult for the teacher to retrieve from
intuition enables the teacher to impose on the chaos of individual word
behaviours an order based on meaning and, more specifically, to use the
pattern as a basis for vocabulary building
Although we have presented our argument mainly in terms of the
behaviour of one particular word classverbsthe notion of patterns is not
restncted to verbs Words of all classes, especially nouns, adjectives, and
adverbs, are also descnbable in terms of their patterns Ultimately, the division
into word classes may be seen as a matter simply of administrative
convenience, rather than a reflection of the language
Our work suggests that a pattern grammar provides learners with a
description of English that is useful for the development of both accuracy
and fluency It should aid accuracy because it provides detailed information
about the behaviour of individual lexical items, moreover this information is
not random but is organized by the meaning groups that words having a
particular pattern form It should aid fluency because the patterns effectively
constitute learnable 'chunks', each pattern flowing into the next

lish, although we are aware that this

assumption is not uncontroversial
3 The dictionary defines all verbs which occur
in the corpus at least 15 times
4 In line 5 the first noun group is realized by
a reflexive pronoun If reflexive pronouns
are always or very frequently used with a
particular verb, the coding reflects this For
example, the sense of exert exemplified in
Try not to exert yourself while working is
coded V pron-refl' In the case of consider,
however, the reflexive pronoun is not
judged to be significantly frequent and is
not coded
5 It has been pointed out to us that in the case
of most of these verbs, the noun group
indicates something that has not been

SUSAN HUNSTON and GILL FRANCIS

mentioned before and is therefore not

usually 2 personal pronoun
6 Our dislike of the term 'Indirect Object
stems from the fan that in an example
such as My parents gave me a microscope kit
me and a microscope kit are affected equally
though in different ways The distinction
between Direct Object and indirect Object
does noi capture these relationships After
all, in answer the question and answer your

71

father, both the question and your father are

traditionally analysed as Direct Objects,
even though the relations between verb
and noun in the two cases are by no means
the same
7 We use the phrase 'a minimum of because
we counted only those lines where because
or cos occurred within 40 characters The
full total may be more than 34 but will not
be less

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VERBS OBSERVED A CORPUS-DRIVEN PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR

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Willis, D a n d J Willis 1996 'Consciousnessraising activities in the language classroom',
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