Using fuzzy tree fragments to explore English grammar

Readers of ET may recall two papers, the first by the late Sidney Greenbaum (‘ICE: the International Corpus of English,’ ET 7, 1991, 3–7), the second and by Akiva Quinn & Nick Porter (‘Investigating English Usage with ICECUP’, ET 10, 1994, pp. 21–24) which introduced the International Corpus of English (ICE) and its search facility ICECUP (the ICE Corpus Utility Programme). The present paper has a two-fold aim: to (re-)acquaint readers with ICE and discuss the latest developments in ICECUP – including its recent release on CD-ROM. The International Corpus of English was initiated by Sidney Greenbaum, whose aim was to set up a number of identically constructed corpora (for the purpose of grammar research) in the world's various English-speaking countries.