Concordancing in the linguistics class

Péter A Lázár

ELTE Budapest

1. Introduction: concordancing

The concordancing possibilities offered by the computer in literary studies have been well

known for a long time now. Equally widely recognized are the uses of concordances in

such fields of the humanities as lexicography, from data capture through the selection and

monitoring of material to be included as well as the actual production of a dictionary. The

language teaching related applications of the computer, by contrast, have largely been

restricted to what is covered by the general term CALL, which is mainly making headway

in pre-secondary and secondary education, or at the pre-intermediate and the intermediate

levels. In addition, the vocabulary rather than the grammar is being targeted (for reasons

rather too trivial to be mentioned here). More systematic, “scholarly” analyses of

descriptive grammar, however, do not seem to benefit either from the blessings of

electronic text manipulation in general or those of concordancing in particular.

With that in mind, a few hints will be offered in the following as to how printed copies

of the Key Word In Context type concordance (see Box 1 below for an un-numbered

concordance list) done with the help of either of two software packages may be exploited

in the grammar/linguistics class, to aid syntactic analysis and help simulate a “fieldwork

situation” for students at college and university levels. I must add that although the use of

this medium in the humanities is well past the experimental stage, I have no knowledge

of any other colleague in the syntax teaching business using concordancing for the same

purpose.

Box 1

ut if the children first hear the word with the right pronunciation,

dren will not understand a single word of the following exercise; but

ortant that they should not say a word in their own language. Page

til the ones at the front get the word. ("It’s a blue bus.") These

f candles on the cakes. Teach the word "candle" beforehand. ("Draw

to the children, which is why the word "you" gets a strong stress.

urself what number goes with what word. Now put the cards on the

ure that they are all pronouncing words correctly. If only choral

ionally show them flashcards with words in print or capital letters

e children can concentrate on the words. Ask them to put the drawings

They will enjoy spelling out the words in the picture, and copying

2. KWIC in the teaching of syntax

2

Until a few years ago, the aim of teaching syntax at our English Department was

to provide students with a sound practical but systematic knowledge of the regularities of

English grammar. Mostly pure descriptive grammar was pursued, facts were taught and

rules exemplified, with no real opportunities to look behind these and see the workings

of English or of language in general. While that has changed, and today the primary aim

of teaching syntax is to communicate to students some of the insights of modern (basically

generative) linguistics, it is still felt by some that in view of our students’ mother tongue,

description cannot be abandoned altogether. This is exactly an area where concordancing

can come in, to enhance understanding, bring some excitement to this enterprise, and to

offer the kind of quasi-hands-on experience which is ideally more rewarding and sure to

yield longer-lasting results than using grammar books and learning the “facts” and the

rules solely from these. The accusation that grammar is somewhat on the dry side may

be a common one, but it can hopefully be warded off using such “experimental”

techniques. I also feel that the more theoretical-oriented linguistics that has come to

dominate the field in recent years can get a firmer grip on reality through being able to

look at language data nowhere else accessible in this form.

Using the concordance lists the students can

discover for themselves how certain regularities show up;

recognize patterns in a large number of examples and generalize the rules from them;

observe that some grammatically homophonous items such as that have diverse syn-

tactic distributions;

explore how the essence of these differences can be captured;

match these findings with what their textbooks may have to say;

contrast their findings with the structure of their native language.

In section 3. we will examine how these may work on a small number of examples.

2. 1. Software, texts, and frequency

The two least complicated and most easily accessible pieces of software that can be used

are the Longman Mini-Concordancer1

and Microconcord2

. The choice of software is only

determined by the type of phenomenon to be exemplified: in the case of grammatical

points with a relatively high occurrence in most texts, sophistication and power of the

software do not really matter. It is only where rare phenomena are involved that getting

a sufficient number of tokens may necessitate a programme such as the Windows-based

Wordsmith3

that can fully utilise the memory capacities of a PC and handle huge texts as

well as multiple files easily. The LMC, unfortunately, cannot load more than half of a file

as long as The Scarlet Letter, and for similarly small files it sends you its sinister warnings

including, in the case of the Keep tags option, the “Tag too long – truncated”, and the

standard “File loading error – x % of last file read” messages. (Microconcord is far superior

both in terms of the size and the number of files handled simultaneously).

1

By Brian Chandler, Longman UK Ltd. So far, I have used Version 1.01, from 1989.

2

By Mike Scott & Tim Johns, Oxford University Press. I use the 1993 Version 1.0.

3

By Mike Scott, Oxford University Press, 1996.

3

The word that, which we will be concentrating on in 3. below, illustrates the former

case, of the very frequent function word: a text as short as The pit and the pendulum has

81 occurrences of it. (Alice’s adventures in Wonderland has 317, and The Scarlet Letter has

1,071). These numbers are almost guaranteed to contain all of the major functions of that.

By contrast, the adjective eager + that-clause construction does not have a single

occurrence in the whole of Les Miserables, it does not occur in the entire Authorised

Version of the Bible, and occurs just once both in Madame Bovary and in The hound of the

Baskervilles.

2. 2. A brief note on techniques

The sheets containing the printouts of the KWIC concordance for a given phenomenon

can simply be distributed by the instructor as home assignment. In this way, the group

taught need not be computer literate; more importantly, they do not have to be on the

same level of such literacy. As with any homework, of course, the more guidance the

students get and the more precise the instructions are, the more profitable the exercise

will turn out. If the home assignment is a written one it may take the form of filling in

matrixes based on the data in the printout.

Where the facilities are available, not only hard copies can be used but working with the

different software packages as well as the actual generating/editing of the concordance

lists can itself be made into a task. In most institutions at present, however, this is hardly

a realistic idea; also, the nature of this “computer class” is such that it ill suits the seminars

of a syntax course, which has different objectives.

3. The typical syntactic problem KWICly solved

Three cases will be illustrated: the multiple functions of that, because of its great variety

and the contrastivity with Hungarian that it offers (3. 1); the without ... -ing construction

(3. 2) and the for ... to structure (3. 3), in both cases not only because of their syntactic

interest but also because of the relative difficulty, right at the onset, of filtering out the

irrelevant illustrations in the material distributed. The first and the third of these will be

shown on just a handful of examples, while without ... -ing is allotted two pages worth

of concordance lines, to show the wealth of material and the difficulty involved in

deciding what is (ir)relevant in a given case.

3. 1. that

That is a many-faced “difficult word”, and some of its uses pose notorious problems. It is

a homophonous item, ie, a spelling that represents different function words: the con-

junction that, as in She thinks / She’s certain THAT he’s crazy, the determiner that, as

in She loves THAT crazy guy, the independent pronoun that, as in She likes THAT, and

the that traditionally termed relative pronoun, as in The colour THAT she likes is

different. The that in the sentence The idea THAT she likes that colour is absurd is

different from the previous one, although closely resembles the relative word. That can

4

be a special noun phrase replacive as in His behaviour was THAT of a man in love.

That can be used in the meaning ‘so’ as in He can’t be THAT crazy. Another type is the

that used in purpose clauses, together with so, as in She smiled so THAT he noticed him.

That also pairs up with so in comparisons such as He was so crazy THAT she fell in love

with him or He sang so wonderfully THAT She fell in love with him. That is

encountered in one of the highlighting devices, the cleft construction, where it serves a

function similar to that of the relative that, as in It’s her singing THAT he loved so much.

A use misleadingly similar to the comparative above is the informal construction He was

THAT crazy she fell in love with him right away. Finally, that can be used somewhat

archaically to express a wish, as in Oh THAT I could see her again!

The relative word that gets omitted in standard English under what might seem myste-

rious conditions to the foreign learner. It nonstandard usage there seem to be fewer re-

strictions, and the that may also be omitted in circumstances where standard English

never deletes it. In some of its functions, the word that is never stressed, in others it may

be. Not only the relative that is omissible but the conjunction that as well, and to worsen

matters, the conjunction so that may get reduced to a mere so in more informal English.4

Let us examine how a list of carefully prepared sentences containing all major functions

of the word that can be used as a corpus in the writing of a tiny portion of the kind of

grammar book that concordances can produce. Box 2 below contains thirty-three num-

bered examples from the Alice’s adventures in Wonderland (out of the 280 that it contains

if the occurrences of the that’s are excluded), concordanced with Microconcord (which,

unlike the LMC, lets you delete any amount of text before you save or print it – a very

sensible option).

To see the type of “ideal solution” to be expected in the students’ homework, we will have

to repeat these structures and number the different that types. The archaism, the that of

the purposive so that, and the marginal/informal that (always replaceable by so) will be

omitted. Type 6), on the other hand, does not occur at all in Alice’s adventures in

Wonderland, so it had to be ignored.

1) She thinks / She’s certain THAT he’s crazy.

2) She loves THAT crazy guy.

3) She likes THAT.

4) The colour THAT she likes is different.

5) The idea THAT she likes that colour is absurd.

6) His behaviour was THAT of a man in love.

7) He can’t be THAT crazy.

8) He was so crazy THAT she fell in love with him.

9) He sang so wonderfully THAT She fell in love with him.

10) It’s her singing THAT he loved so much.

Box 2

2 e, the Queen merely remarking that a moment's delay would cost them

3 much,' said the Duchess; `and that's a fact.' Alice did not at all

9 ready to agree to everything that Alice said; `there's a large mus

4

This, incidentally, creates another difficulty (unrelated to the topic under discussion): that of

distinguishing between the purposive so [= in order that] and the resultative so [= in this way].

5

11 id suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to

think

21 e. The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could b

22 sure herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, s

23 indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank--the birds

26 : next thing is, to get into that beautiful garden--how IS that to

38 seem to dry me at all.' `In that case,' said the Dodo solemnly, r

43 ce noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their heads. She

65 e (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot

68 erhaps it was only the pepper that had made her so savage when they

69 und. (It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so

72 od with the birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a

73 rushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the tree

74 an waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.' `If you knew

82 em, and was delighted to find that her neck would bend about easily

94 Oh dear! I'd nearly forgotten that I've got to grow up again! Let m

120 as now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had sli

126 e soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game ind

136 said Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last: `and I do s

140 ded in a whisper, half afraid that it would be offended again. `Mi

146 o read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, an

148 n key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden. Then she we

155 out--Maybe it's always pepper that makes people hot-tempered,' she

174 st, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'

185 there's no use in crying like that!' said Alice to herself, rather

201 but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and,

218 or it flashed across her mind that she had never before see a rabbi

223 ould abide figures!' And with that she began nursing her child agai

228 ddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud. `Do you mean

241 , rising to its feet, `I move that the meeting adjourn, for the imm

307 se strange Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about

The analysis of a sufficient number of different occurrences of that the corpus should

make it obvious that the two major subclasses of that are different with respect to the

clause they occur in. One does not have its role in the larger clause structure itself, rather,

inside an NP as Determiner (type 2 below in Table 1), a self-contained NP (type 3), NP-

replacement, or Pro-form (type 6), or as an intensifying adverb modifying a noun (type

7). By contrast (and this will be borne out by most of the Hungarian equivalents), the

other type of that has its job in the clause, functioning as some kind of linkage between

its own clause and the larger main clause into which the subclause “headed” by that has

been embedded: as a conjunction in finite clauses (type 1), as a relative “pronoun” (type

4), as an element introducing a clause that complements a (particular type of ) noun in

apposition to the clause (type 5), and finally as an element always occurring parallel with

so within an Adjective or an Adverb Phrase, starting a clause that modifies the adjective

or adverb (types 8, 9 in Table 1).

Table 1

Non-clausal Clausal

Deter-

miner

2

Noun

Phrase

3

Pro-

form

6

“Ad-

verb”

7

Con-

junction

1

Relative

word

4

Appos-

ition

marker

5

Modi-

fier of adjec-

tive /adverb

8, 9

Cleft

constr.

marker

10

6

One way of working with the corpus may be to hand out empty boxes just with the

headings/labels (such as Table 2 below) and asking the students to write the numbers of

the relevant sentences in the matching slot. A variant of this can be the handing out of

boxes without labels or headings, with just the appropriate number of types.

Table 2

Det

NP Pro-

form

Adverb

Conj Relative Appos.

marker

Modifier

of adj/adv

Cleft con-

str.

It is important to note that no matter what the instructions are and how much knowledge

is taken for granted, the technical terms themselves do very little to further the

understanding of the phenomena involved (what they do is put off most people); the point

here is that no terminology needs to be used at all: the examples will ideally speak for

themselves.

When the types have been established, several questions about the distribution of a par-

ticular that type can be asked, including the following: (i) Is it possible to replace it by

anything? (ii) By this? (iii) By which? (iv) Is it possible to replace it by nothing – ie, leave

it out and still have a grammatical sentence? (v) Can it be unstressed? (vi) Is there a

traditional term for it ? (vii) Is there a Hungarian equivalent?

Table 3 tabulates this information, and the footnotes accompanying it comment on

some of the values in the matrix.

7

Table 3

Non-clausal Clausal

2 3 6 7 1 4 5 8, 9 10

Replace- this + + – + – – – – –

able? which – – – – – +5

– – –

Omissible? – – – (–)6

+7

±8

– + +9

Can be unstr’d? + – – – + + + + +

Traditional

term?

Dem-

onstr.

pron.

Dem-

onstr.

(pron.)

– – Con-

junc-

tion

Relative

pronoun

– Con-

junc-

tion

–

Hungarian

equivalent?

az a az – olyan (az)

hogy

aki; ami /

amely(ik)10

hogy hogy aki;

ami

It is also possible, of course, for an instructor to wish to construct the questions in a totally

different way, assuming no previous knowledge whatever of these functions of that, and

getting the students to set up the types themselves, as if from scratch. In this case, a matrix

containing just the classification criteria may be distributed, while the instructions may

tell the students to go through the concordance list and answer, for each structure, the

questions listed as (i)—(vi) above, and see if the second sentence contains the same that as

the first, whether the that in the third one is the same type as in the second, etc. The

students may also be told not to expect more than a dozen different types, and fill in the

boxes, like in Table 4 below:

5

This is the only value which marks a that as obviously belonging to one type.

6

Not omissible without change in the meaning, but the sentence is grammatical without it.

7

There is no clear single rule that could be followed here, so the + sign is used rather than the ± sign,

even if there are cases when the conjunction that is not omissible. Non-omissibility can be convincingly

presented only if the corpus is big enough. Fortunately, a few cases in point can be found: Lines 22, 100 and

106 should suffice as illustrations. Here, it is the parenthetical material between the that and the rest of the

clause that makes omission impossible – one of the typical causes of non-omissibility.

8

Unlike the previous case, this is an uniquely straightforward situation: the word that cannot be omitted

whenever it is subject in its own clause.

9

Learners ought probably not to be encouraged to copy this omission, but the fact remains that this

word is omissible.

10

The contrast between aki vs ami/amely(ik) is that between animate and inanimate, while the biggest

difference between ami and amely(ik) is one of style.

8

Table 4

Type

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 ...

Is it replaceable

by this?

Is it replaceable

by which?

Is it omissible?

Can it be unstressed?

Is there a Hungarian

equivalent for it?

A remark should be made here of those cases where the 60 or even 80 characters that can

be printed to the line on the A4 page are not long enough to clear up all ambiguity, that

is, when it is not clear in which of its functions a given expression appears. This can be

handled in three ways: either the instructor should avoid such examples altogether by

careful screening; another option is to simply make a mental note of them, anticipating

analyses from students who have realized the ambiguity; or explicitly include in the

instructions that some lines may contain cases that can illustrate more than one type,

depending on the context. Whichever should be the case, one has to be alert to ambiguity.

A frequent case like this can be when the context is not sufficiently large to ascertain

whether the that is a true relative one, or marks a cleft construction, as exemplified by:

It’s a paperback that he bought for the journey,

which may either answer the question, What’s this? meaning It’s a paperback which he

BOUGHT, with the nuclear stress on bought, or a sentence highlighting the object,

meaning It’s a PAPERBACK that he bought (and not something else). (The that,

unfortunately, is omissible in both cases, thus providing no clue here). Cases of such

ambiguity include Line 68 and Line 155 in Box 2 above; in actual fact, they are both cleft

sentences.

3. 2. without ... -ing

The main difference between this analysis and the word that is that here the student must

first weed out those lines which have nothing to do with the structure under discussion,

ie, the preposition without followed by an -ing clause complement (which has or doesn’t

have its own subject). What they will want, then, is examples like Lines 11 and 14 (-ing

clauses with no subject) and Lines 20 and 24 (-ing clause with subject). (All this first of

all involves a decision concerning the word class of without, which may also be a place

adverb, as the sentences containing without in the sense of ‘outside’ in Lines 10 and 67

show. The majority, of course, will be prepositions). The real problems here are caused by

another multi-functional element, the ending -ing. Establishing which function a given -

9

ing form has may be complicated and requires several kinds of information — but

all that can be found in the context if one looks carefully enough.

We cannot go into details here; suffice it to point out that the list gives one an opportunity

to study the form of the subject of the -ing clause (him vs his in Lines 117—122); to

observe passive clauses: Lines 42—47; and the different types of have (obligation; causative)

as the Verb in clauses functioning as complements of without: Lines 109—112.

Box 3

1 e wonderful had he spoken without a bidding. No, no; your y

4 inous silence. Presently, without a parting word, Joe began

5 or several moments. Then, without a word, he rose and moving

10 elling my brains, I heard without a crackling of whips and p

11 est spent itself and died without accomplishing its object.

14 t the dogs"? asked Magua, without adverting in any manner to

15 "! The officer proceeded, without affecting to hear the word

16 So now we can come and go without alarming her unduly , for a

17 ou also to do it blindly, without always asking the reason."

20 right girl he'll know it, without any telling. Girls' faces

21 old self can be manifest without any controlling force subd

22 merge into reality. Then, without any seeming change, he bro

23 dig Jim out with a pick, without any letting on, because y

24 ed that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing that that

26 ed, at no great distance, without appearing to heed them. "C

27 nion", resumed the other, without appearing to regard the bo

29 on Quixote, I would know without asking. He said it was all

31 he scout, moving forward, without attending further to his o

32 ing,’ the Footman went on without attending to her, ‘if we h

34 ve and attentive Indians, without attending to the other's q

35 to vanish on the instant. Without attending to this sudden c

36 or did he cross a rivulet without attentively considering th

37 ward found means to enter without attracting any dangerous a

40 could not go much further without becoming the history of a

42 ld not steal through them without being seen? Then, did he n

43 the last degree ungainly, without being in any particular ma

44 llowed to leave the stand without being cross-questioned. E

46 civil of you to sit down without being invited,’ said the M

47 u could not celebrate him without being known yourself. When

49 y of his fancied kindred, without bestowing some evidence of

51 ered their hands to meet, without betraying the least emotio

52 Jack, if you may tell me without betraying confidence, Arth

54 thong, and drop the gourd without breaking it"! returned Haw

55 hicans here will take him without breaking his paint". "Nay"

56 e said she had passed it without calling, when she went dow

57 lly to foam at the mouth, without causing a muscle to vibrat

58 ty? How could he claim it without causing suspicion and inqu

61 e done to death in London without coming down to Devonshire

63 tatements with the fight, without confessing the grave-robbe

64 acle,’ said the Dormouse, without considering at all this ti

65 anything from Lucy's room without consulting him. That the f

67 ere is nothing to be seen without", continued Hawkeye shaking

68 spent the eleventh shot without convincing these people, t

69 ies would gradually, and without creating suspicion or exci

70 to the Albany Patteroon, without crossing brook or hill tha

75 aw the act, and moved on, without discovering herself. She s

Box 3 — continued

76 ery lodge in the village, without discovering the slightest

10

77 tolen rights and manhood without disobliging anybody. I lit

78 nd, strange to say, slept without dreaming. Despair has its

79 the rocks, where retreat without encountering the animal wa

80 ould have performed. But, without entirely losing the meekne

81 with his head!’ she said, without even looking round. ‘I'll

82 hurriedly left the court, without even waiting to put his sh

83 and humbly give thanks, without even waiting to rob the b

84 nd he looked at me steady without ever smiling, and says:

86 ight his battle for him, without ever stopping to inquire

88 f fluttering in the wind. Without exhausting himself with fr

89 tender or emotional side without feeling it derogatory to h

90 get away with that tooth without fetching the whole harrow

91 llowed it for many miles, without finding a single twig brok

94 e fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A certain A

96 began to eat, though not without first bending his looks sl

97 d of hospitality together without first making peace, and th

98 raid to hang the composer without first consulting me. I wa

99 r who tries such a thing without first educating his materi

102 aws out of the sugar-bowl without fooling around any. Just

104 so that I could touch it without getting up, and showed me

107 ow are we to get the life without getting the soul also?"

108 the space of half an hour without going beyond the "known" g

109 could now smoke a little without having to go and hunt for

110 les enough for a soldier, without having his camp filled wit

112 en he'd get Huck's money without having to bother a long ti

113 She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at

115 he earnest old chieftain, without heeding the wounded spirit

116 se, half-way up the hill, without hesitating, and still clim

117 o we'll go and do him one without him knowing it — st

118 him as soon as he spoke, without his ever being named. It i

119 ght the look in mine, and without his thinking, followed the

120 hand and foot, you see, without his ever noticing that he

121 f the sick woman, was not without his suspicions concerning

122 ternoon had slipped away without his ever coming to himself

125 might explain my motives without imputing to me this injust

126 umb; you've let that slip without intending it; you can't co

127 mouse go on for some time without interrupting it. ‘They w

129 t how to run in daylight without it being dangersome for Ji

130 should be able to get on without it. Having had some time

132 I think and believe, not without its reward. Van Helsing ha

134 ved upon it. She went in without knocking, and hurried upst

It may be worthwhile to note here that when trying to find texts illustrating a particular

grammatical feature, one may discover traits of English of mainly diachronic interest, such

as changes in a syntactic pattern. When one looks for textual illustrations of some

grammatical phenomena, it is impossible to know in advance which type of text will have

them. While, for example, the nonfinite clausal structure without ... -ing (including

without X -ing structures, where X is the subject) is represented by only ten occurrences

in the whole of the Authorised Version of the Bible, Les Miserables has over 313

occurrences of without -ing (this time, excluding without X -ing, with X being the

subject!). The discovery that there has been such a tremendous increase in the structure’s

occurrence since this archaic text was written, and similar findings about syntactic

changes in general, may provide useful hints for further searches along historical lines.

11

3. 1. for ... to

The for in sentences like It is time [FOR her to LEAVE] is not a preposition but a con-

junction introducing a nonfinite clause. The for ... to clause is often replaceable by a finite

that clause, but this need not be always the case: It is time [that she left].

The most difficult thing about this structure is that students must first be able to find

those lines which contain it, ie, where the for is not a preposition but this special con-

junction. The following pair of examples will illustrate the difference:

We waited [FOR Joan and Tom TO come closer]

— here for introduces the clause, in a similar function to if, till or the conjunction that:

‘Joan and Tom came closer’;

We waited FOR [Joan and Tom](,) to talk to them

— here the complement of for is just Joan and Tom:

we waited for them; it is we who wanted to talk to them; the words for and to talk are in

separate clauses.

In Box 4 below we have underlined the relevant clausal for ... to sequences. As can be

seen, this nonfinite clause must have its own subject at least in standard (British) English,

which — when it is a personal pronoun (Lines 5 and 6 below) — always appears in the

objective case.11

A large enough corpus will also contain examples where the form of the verb in the clause

introduced by for is not the simple to-infinitive but the perfect, progressive, or perfect–

progressive infinitive. (Of these, only the first is illustrated in Line 11).

Box 4

1 n. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was

2 ry. Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk ab

3 ke it had made. ‘He took me for his housemaid,’ she said to her

4 g thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out wh

5 re whether it was good manners for her to speak first, ‘why your c

6 that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it further. So s

7 to think’ said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a lit

8 ’ said the Gryphon, ‘she wants for to know your history, she do.’

9 rst and most important things for a critic to learn is how to sl

10 obs in which it is impossible for a man to be virtuous.

11 elf is not an adequate reason for nature to have made use of a th

12 nsists of making it difficult for people to work.

Although it should be clear that quite a lot of phenomena typically focused on by theo-

retical linguistics — notably: movement, transformations, traces, ie the dynamic rather

than the static — cannot be handled using concordances, it seems evident that they nev-

ertheless are an excellent means that can hardly be surpassed by any other technique

whenever authentic language is to be presented, helping the students to become conscious

11

This is exploited in Line 19, where the nonstandardness of she wants for to know is reinforced by

she do.

12

of various regularities, to discover the rules by working with the data. Anything

that is genuinely worth knowing may well be unteachable, but haven’t we always claimed

that learning is different?