Sharp PW-E500A operation manual Evidence and Illustrative Examples, Terms relating to adverbs

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[postpositive]: used to mark an adjective which is used postpositively, i.e. it typically comes immediately after the noun which it modifies. Such uses are unusual in English and generally arise because the adjective has been adopted from a language where postpositive use is standard, e.g. galore in there were prizes galore for everything.

Terms relating to adverbs

[sentence adverb]: used to mark an adverb which stands outside a sentence or clause, providing commentary on it as a whole or showing the speaker’s or writer’s attitude to what is being said, rather than the manner in which something was done. Sentence adverbs most frequently express the speaker's or writer's point of view, although they may also be used to set a context by stating a field of reference, e.g. certainly.

[as submodifier]: used to mark an adverb which is used to modify an adjective or another adverb, e.g. comparatively.

Evidence and Illustrative Examples

The information presented in the dictionary about individual words is based on close analysis of how words behave in real, natural language. Behind every dictionary entry are examples of the word in use–often hundreds and thousands of them–which have been analysed to give information about typical usage, about distribution (whether typically British or typically US, for example), about register (whether informal or derogatory, for example), about currency (whether archaic or dated, for example), and about subject field (whether used only in Medicine, Finance, Chemistry, or Sport, for example).

1. Oxford English Corpus

The Oxford Dictionary of English was compiled using the Oxford English Corpus, and new material added to this second edition has been derived from this source. The Oxford English Corpus is the name for the Oxford University Press holdings of language databases amounting to hundreds of million words of written and spoken English in machine-readable form, available for computational analysis. Among these language resources are the British National Corpus (100 million words), a new corpus of comparable size, and the database of the Oxford Reading

Programme (see below). By using concordancing techniques, each word can be viewed almost instantaneously in the immediate contexts in which it is used. Whereas compilers of previous dictionaries were able to base their work on only a limited selection of citations, lexicographers on the Oxford Dictionary of English analysed hundreds of real examples of each word to see how real language behaves today.

Concordances show at a glance that some combinations of words (called ‘collocations’) occur together much more often than others. For example, concordance entries might show that ‘end in’, ‘end the’, and ‘end up’ all occur quite often. But are any of these combinations important enough to be given special treatment in the dictionary?

Recent research has focused on identifying combinations that are not merely frequent but also statistically significant. In the Oxford English Corpus, the two words ‘end the’ occur very frequently together but they do not form a statistically significant unit, since the word ‘the’ is the commonest in the language. The combinations end up and end in, on the other hand, are shown to be more significant and tell the lexicographer something about the way the verb end behaves in normal use. Of course, a dictionary for general use cannot go into detailed statistical analysis of word combinations, but it can present examples that are typical of normal usage. In the Oxford Dictionary of English particularly significant or important patterns are highlighted, in bold, e.g. end in, end up under end.

For further details, see the section on Grammar.

2. Oxford Reading Programme

The citation database created by the Oxford Reading Programme is an ongoing research project in which readers around the world select citations from a huge variety of specialist and non-specialist sources in all varieties of English. This database currently stands at around 77 million words and is growing at a rate of 7 million words a year.

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Contents PW-E500A Introduction Contents Getting Started Using the PW-E500A for the first timeAuto power off function Turning the power on/offTo attach a commercially available strap BacklightData contained in the PW-E500A Layout Operation guidance message Display symbolsKey assignments Selecting a dictionary / function in the main menu Basic operationInputting words for a dictionary search Filter search view selecting an item scrolling List view selecting an item scrollingRecalling the terms previously searched h Detail view scrollingShifting the displayed character size z Browsing Notes r Listing a summary of detail view items qSearching a word on the screen Set-up menu Setting the key sound on/offAdjusting the LCD contrast Setting the Auto power off activation timeStarting Auto Demo mode Inputting characters4WD Modifying entryLooking up a word Filter search Using the Oxford Dictionary of EnglishIf there is no match found Browsing NotesSpellcheck function Phrase searchIf the list of words does not appear as expected Further informationUsing the Oxford Thesaurus of English Press tto open the Oxford Thesaurus of English Searching by an author name Filter search Using the Oxford Dictionary of QuotationsPress uto open the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Keyword searchScreen of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Random quoteCrossword solver Using the Solver functionsPuzzle solver Entering characters Anagram solverHow to use the Super jump function Using the Super jump functionAbout the detail view after the jump Specifying a Dictionary to jump toHow to use the History function Using the History functionDeleting a history item Deleting the history list of a DictionaryExample Operation Display Prior to initiating calculationsCalculation examples Converting currencies Setting a currency rateCurrency converter Units capable of being converted Metric converterAppendices Replacing the batteryReset procedures Reset procedure if trouble occursSpecifications Product support TroubleshootingIntroduction Oxford Dictionary of EnglishStructure Core Sense and Subsense NoseSpecialized case of the core sense, e.g Encyclopedic Material Specialist VocabularyTerms relating to nouns GrammarTerms relating to adjectives Other terms relating to nounsTerms relating to verbs Terms relating to adverbs Evidence and Illustrative ExamplesOxford English Corpus Oxford Reading ProgrammeExamples Word HistoriesSpecialist reading Standard English Usage NotesWorld English Variant spellings SpellingIse or ize? HyphenationNouns InflectionVerbs Adjectives PronunciationsConsonants Foreign pronunciationsSelection of entries Oxford Thesaurus of EnglishIllustrative examples HomonymsSynonyms Register standard vs. informal and regional English Linguistic evidenceIdiomatic phrases and phrasal verbs Word links OppositesWord lists ‘Choose the Right Word’ notesConfusables Introduction abridged Oxford Dictionary of QuotationsPage How to use the Dictionary Page Keyword Search Europe Sharp Corporation
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