English Linguistics:
Applied Linguistics
How to use the COBUILD corpus (1)
How to use the COBUILD corpus (2)
Comparison with Dutch: the INL corpus
Reporting on your progress and findings
Comparison with Dutch: the INL corpus
For comparative (English-Dutch) topics, you will need Dutch corpus material. One possible source for such material is provided by the Instituut voor Nederlandse Lexicologie (Institute for Dutch Lexicology). From their site, you can obtain information on how to access their so-called 38 Miljoen Woorden Corpus (choose Corpora & Lexica, and then Via internet raadpleegbare corpora). In order to obtain access, you need to read and sign a user licence and send it to the INL. The corpus is accessed via telnet and interrogated through a program for which you find a manual (in Dutch) from the INL site (for a direct link, click here). Corpus extractions can be mailed to the e-mail address linked to your user account.
If you need to gain access to the INL corpus, please use the documentation available from the INL website to get started. The short introduction and the single exampe provided here do not offer enough information for you to find your way around the INL corpus.
Example
In order to find tokens of the verb voelen (to feel) combined with an adverb of manner, you choose the option Gebruikersinterface met formele taal specificaties from the main menu, and subsequently option 6, Zoeken naar meerwoordpatronen, and you enter as your search pattern [lemma='voelen'][ws='a']. (This means that you will be searching for any token of the lemma voelen, including for instance voelt, immediately followed not by an adverb but by an adjective. The reason for this apparent mismatch is that searching on the part of speech 'adverb' will yield useless results involving words such as altijd (always), bijvoorbeeld (for example), ook (also) and the like. The kind of adverb we are looking for here is, in Dutch, formally identical to an adjective.) A relevant result of this query is de huid voelt vochtig.
In order to e-mail all results to your e-mail address, you press 'enter' from the concordance screen. In order to go back to the main screen, you can press 'H' at any time. In order to shut down the program entirely, you choose stop programma (stop program) by pressing 7, then you choose hoofdmenu (main menu) (4) and stoppen (stop) (4), and finally you press enter.
Usage note
If you use the telnet access to interrogate the INL corpus, your screen may appear garbled, with Äs and superscripted 3s appearing where they shouldn't. This may be annoying, but it does not in any way affect the functionality of the program. If you want to avoid this problem, you can resort to using a so-called terminal emulator such as EWAN, which you can download from this site, or QPC (which the INL recommends on its website), available here.
Help
If you need to make Dutch corpus extractions yourself and you need help, please contact Tine Breban.
Copyright ©2002-2004 Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Contents: Lieven Vandelanotte
Created by: Lieven Vandelanotte
Last modified: 15-03-2004
URL: http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.ac.be/engling/appling