There was also, far away in Scandinavia, the highly experienced grammarian, Stig Johansson, who played a key role in the research, planning, and writing. And Biber was especially lucky in having as his partner in the massive task, both of general design and of implementing detailed insights, a scholar of Geoffrey Leech's stature in the fields of semantics, pragmatics, granimatology, and computational linguistics. | ng-d au ses 749 Adjectival predicates controlling 7ng-dauses CORPUS FINDINGS 1 The most common adjectival predicate with an ing-clause in post-predicate position is capable of occurring over 20 times per million words . Several other adjectival predicates are relatively common in this construction. In most of these the adjective is followed by a preposition which could also have a noun phrase as its complement afraid of available for aware of bad about at confident of crucial for in different from effective at in good at great at important for in incapable of intent on interested in necessary for responsible for sorry about successful at suitable for tired of useful for in DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS Most of the adjectives that control an ing-clause convey either an affective stance or some other evaluation These people were not afraid of signing papers. FiCTf I m sorry about being in a mood Saturday conv I could see she was confident of handling any awkward situation that might arise. piCTf It is true that young rabbits are great migrants and capable of journeying for miles. fictI There is no reason why women should not be good at selling cars news Colombian traffickers are responsible for processing and smuggling 80 percent of the cocaine sold on . streets. news Mineralogy and texture are also useful in subdividing the sedimentary rocks. acad Post-predicate ng-clauses across registers CORPUS FINDINGS Overall ng-dauses in post-predicate position are most common in the written registers especially fiction and least common in conversation. Ing-clauses following adjectival predicates are most common in academic prose. DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS The non-finite complement clauses to-clauses as well as ing-clauses are predominantly a feature of written language. In contrast the finite complement clauses tfojt-clauses and wh-clauses arc most common in conversation. Like to-clauses ing-clauses Figure Frequencies of ing-dause types across registers H adjective
