(For CorpLings, from Stubbs)

(1)  Use corpus data to state the collocates of BOGGLE. (Does it always
collocate with mind?) And blithering. (Are there any other forms of a lemma
BLITHER?) And GRUFF. (The phrase gruff voice is common, but there are
also other collocates). Do the collocates share a semantic feature?

(2)  Some words and phrases usually occur in the negative (Buyssens 1959;
Laduslaw 1996: 328; Sinclair l998):

    not bad-looking; wouldn't budge; didn't cut much ice; didn't drink a drop; 
    wouldn't lift a finger to help me; not so much as a red cent; 
    I've never set eyes on her

Are these phrases always negative? Or are there exceptions?

(3)  Study examples of adverb-adjective phrases such as

    absolutely certain, potentially dangerous, singularly stupid, specially
    designed, totally different, understandably reluctant, virtually impossible

Is it possible to make generalizations about the adjectives which typically
follow these adverbs? A useful article is by Louw (1993), who analyses the
negative implications of utterly, as in utterly confused and utterly ridiculous.


(7)     Some individual collocations may signal a specific text-type: the phrase 
finely chopped is probably from a recipe; warm and front do not
signal any test-type on their own, but warm front is probably from a
weather forecast; luxury home is probably from advertising by a builder or 
estate agent. In general English, time might collocate with spend or
waste; but in sports commentaries, it is likely to collocate with half 
and injury (Partington 1998: 17). Find other examples where a particular 
phrase or collocation reliably identifies a text-type, and other examples where 
words have different collocates in different text-types.

  On the basis of such differences across text-types, Biber et al. (1998: 234) 
argue that `characterizations of general English are usually not characterizerations 
of any variety at all, but rather a middle ground that describes no actual text 
or register'. Is this criticism of the concept `general English' justified?

(8)  Words which are rough (denotational) synonyms are usually used in quite 
different ways: possibly in different collocations, with different connotations
 in different text-types, and so on. Study the different patterns around these 
approximately synonymous adjectives:

	escalating, growing, increasing, mounting, rising, soaring, spiralling

For example, does rising have mainly positive collocates (rising prosperity) or 
mainly negative collocates (rising costs)? Does its discourse prosody depend on 
the longer phrase it occurs in? What nouns typically follow a rising tide of? 
Which nouns typically follow mounting or soaring? Partington (1998: 113-14)
provides further data and discussion of these roughly synonymous adjectives.

(9)    (Using the two-parted online Dickens corpus under the genre corpora link)

    * What is downcast in Dickens? (i.e., what does downcast typically modify?)
      Is someone with downcast eyes downcast?
    * What is death-like for Dickens? (or deathlike)