Operators
The following operators can be used in all fields: lemma, phrase, word
form, CQL.
full stop
before,
during or after a word finds that word with any letter in the
space of the full stop.
b.g gives big bag beg
bog bug (click on Node Forms in Frequency to obtain the
list)
asterisk
after
a full stop finds any
number of letters in place of the full stop
.*ship finds words ending with ship
oxy.* finds words beginning with oxy
.*interest finds words beginning with interest
bl.*ng finds words that start with bl and end with ng .*advantag.* finds words with advantag
in the middle.
question mark
The
bracketed items are
optional characters.
blond(e)? finds blond
and blonde
vertical bar
struggle|battle|fight
searches for all of these items
slash
To
search for a full stop, use the slash and the full stop.
Dr\. finds Dr.
Capitals
If you type Doctor
in lemma, you only get Doctor.
However, doctor
in lemma gives all possibilities, upper and lower case.
To have doctor
only, type it into word form and choose Match Case.
In the Word Sketch Engine, queries can be automatically
generated
by typing words into the lemma, phrase, left context etc., fields.
Typing your own queries gives you greater control over what you search
for.
Each element of a query is enclosed in square brackets: [ ] and you can
type a long string of elements.
Specific search items, usually words and tags, are enclosed in
quotation marks:
" "
Here is an example of a query that includes many of the elements that
are illustrated below. It searches the BNC for the lemma "bias"
followed
by either "towards" or "torward" which are followed by a noun within
three words.
This is typed into the CQL field:
[lemma = "bias"] [word =
"towards|toward"] []{1,3}[tag= "NN."]
Click
the picture to see the result of the search.
Create a query searching for a particular part of speech (POS). Use
upper case.
A list of POS can be found here.
Here
[tag = " "]
Note: parts
of tags can be substituted with a full stop. All verb tags, for
example, start with V.
The second element is B for the verb to be, H for to have, D
for to do,
M for modals and V for lexical verbs.
The third element is B for base form, D for past tense, N for past
participle, G for ing form, Z for third person singular.
For example:
[tag = "V.."] searches for all verbs in all forms
[tag = "VV."] searches for all lexical verbs in all forms
[tag = "VD."] searches for all forms of the verb to do
[tag = "V.N"] searches for the past participle forms of all verbs
Words often appear between your target elements. For example, nouns are
often proceeded by determiners and adjectives, phrasal and delexical
verb groups often have other elements between the components, all sorts
of phrases and structures permit variation.
The empty brackets allow any one word to appear inbetween.
[lemma =
""][] [lemma = "approach"]
The number between the braces {} indicates the number of words
permitted inbetween. This query asks for three words between make and success.
[lemma = "make"][]{3}[lemma ="success"]
Using {1,3} gives the range - from one to three. This query asks for
one or two or three words between let
and down.
[lemma = "let"][]{1,3}[word ="down"]
This query asks for up to five words separating whether and or not.
The exclamation mark preceding the equals sign means does not equal. The
following query will find fast
as a noun, verb and adverb, but not as an adjective.
[lemma="fast" &
tag != "AJ0"]
The next example finds dream
followed by anything but about.
[lemma="dream"] [word
!="about"]
The next examples find all forms of break followed by
five words and then smile
not as a verb.
[lemma = "break"] []{5}
[lemma="smile" & tag !="V.."]
As some punctuation serves as query codes, it is
necessary to escape them by using the forward slash \. The first example
here searches for which preceded by a comman. The second example without.
You can search for don't
as a lemma but it returns the noun form as in the do's and don'ts. To
search for contractions, ..... The full list of these forms
and their tags can be found at the BNC site.
Two words (and more) equal
one
Many multi-word units (MWU) have been tagged as single words. For
example, in case, every
so often, out of touch with. This will affect the results
of your search if, for example, your search for the preposition
preceding case
or touch
was formed by looking for these key words. Try it and see!
The full list of these MWUs and their tags can be found at the
BNC
site.
