Below we define a number of phrase categories. We consider a phrase to be any group of words functioning as a conceptual unit.
For each phrase category, we’ll typically give examples (both positive and negative) to help illuminate the category and criteria for membership. For brevity, we’ll use plus and minus signs (+ and -) to indicate positive and negative examples, respectively. For example phrases that we find ambiguous, such that the criteria we’ve laid out are insufficient for determining category membership, we’ll use a question mark (?) to indicate the example’s ambiguous nature.
For all instances on this page, the terms “Verb” and “Noun” correspond to the fully inclusive definitions previously given.
Nouns which are not modified either morphologically or by another element within a noun phrase.
Examples:
Negative Examples:
All nouns modified in any way.
Morphologically marked plural nouns. Does not include plurale tantum nouns (i.e. “pants”), which are considered unmodified.
Negative Examples:
Number of times a noun appears modified by any determiner, excluding numeric and possessive determiners, and excluding the word “another”.
Negative Examples:
Count the number of times a noun appears modified by at least one quantifier, including numeric determiners and the word “another”.
Negative Examples:
Number of times a noun appears modified by at least one adjective.
Negative Examples:
All examples of a possessive modifying a noun, either formed with the clitic or belonging to the closed class of possessive determiners. Subdivided into these two categories:
All examples of the first person possessive pronoun modifying a noun.
All other types of possessives modifying nouns, excluding the first person.
Number of times a noun appears modified by at least one other noun.
Negative Examples:
Number of times that noun phrases are coordinated together using “and,” “but,” or “or”.
Negative Examples:
Number of times a prepositional phrase appears modifying a noun phrase.
Examples:
Negative Examples:
Verbs which are not modified either morphologically or by another element within a verb phrase.
Examples:
Negative Examples:
All verbs modified in any way.
We do not have a count of all verbs modified morphologically in any way, but we have the following subtypes of modification using a morpheme or particle:
Number of times a verb appears conjugated in the past tense.
Examples:
Negative examples:
Number of times a verb appears in the infinitive, including within a verb phrase that is itself finite, but excluding cases where the verb is elided. The reason we exclude these cases is that our transcription does not distinguish forms like “I want to” from the fused form “I wanna.”
Negative Examples:
Number of times a verb or auxiliary appears in the progressive aspect and serves a verbal role.
Negative Examples:
Number of times a verb or auxiliary marked for the third person singular appears, excluding the copula (i.e. the word “is” when used as a verb and not an auxiliary).
Negative Examples:
Number of times a verb appears with at least one particle, as defined by our coding system. A verbal particle is a preposition that is required by the verb in order to have the meaning that it has, and does not convey real prepositional information.
Negative Examples:
All other forms of morphological verb modification not covered in the preceding categories (i.e. verbs with particles, infinitives, third singulars, past tense, and progressives). This includes verbs in the conditional, perfect, first singular, first/third singular, and present.
Number of times a verb appears modified by at least one adverb.
Negative Examples:
Number of times a prepositional phrase appears modifying a verbal phrase.
Negative Examples:
Number of times that verb phrases are coordinated together using “and” or “or”.
Negative Examples:
Number of times a prepositional phrase appears as the root of an utterance (i.e. does not modify any other clause or word), excluding cases where the copula is dropped but is semantically present.
Negative examples: