[I]n fiction writing and newspaper writing, the verb say is much more frequent than any other lexical verb; in conversation, the verbs go and know are as frequent as say, and get is more frequent than any of those three verbs; while in academic writing, the only especially frequent verb is BE.
Corpus Linguistics and Grammar Teaching
I think it's time for me to bite the bullet and order a copy of Biber & Conrad's book.
ReplyDeleteOnly problem is: I'm torn between the 1000-page book and the 500-page Student Grammar.
I'm also intensely interested in "Real Grammar."