




































English Language Teaching Educational Journal (ELTEJ) 
Vol. 1, No. 3, 2018, pp. 134-148 
E-ISSN: 2621-6485  

  

 

The Use of Phonetically Reduced Modals in Present-day 

English: A Corpus-Based Analysis 

 
Ikmi Nur Oktavianti 
Universitas Ahmad Dahlan 

ikmi.oktavianti@pbi.uad.ac.id 

 
Abstract 

This paper examines the usage frequency of phonetically reduced modals (i.e. gonna, 

wanna, gotta) in Present-day English. It is assumed that in distinct sociolinguistic and 

discourse contexts, the use of reduced modals is dynamic. To collect the data, there are five 

corpora used in this study, Corpus of Contemporary American English and Global Web-

Based English as the representatives of Present-day English, Brown and LOB corpus as the 

representative of earlier years of Present-day English, and A Representative Corpus of 

Historical English to provide language data from Early Modern English to Present-day 

English. The analysis focuses on usage frequency of phonetically reduced modals over 

period of time, in different regions or countries, different medium of language use, and 

different text categories. The frequencies were further interpreted based on sociolinguistics 

and text category perspective to reveal the factors triggering the dynamic of use. The 

results of this study show the use of reduced modals is dramatically escalating in the last 

decades. According to regional observation, the use of reduced modals is more frequent in 

the United States than in other English-speaking countries. In relation to medium of 

language use, reduced modals are more commonly used in spoken language than in written 

language. As for text category, the usage frequency of reduced modal in fiction texts is the 

highest compared to academic texts and news texts. Academic texts seem to avoid these 

linguistic units since this sort of text must obey the use of standard language in which 

reduced forms are less standard and more colloquial. This phonetic reduction is plausible 

to occur since language system and language use apply economy principle. The use of 

phonetically reduced modals, however, varies in different context and is influenced by 

colloquialization: the more colloquial the context, the more frequent the use of reduced 

modals. In general, language use is phonetically simplified and sociolinguistically 

colloquialized. 

Keywords: phonetically reduced modals, corpus, sociolinguistics, discourse, economy 

 

 

How to Cite: Oktavianti, I. N. (2018). The use of phonetically reduced modals in present-

day English: A corpus-based analysis. English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 

1(3), 134-148.  

  

 

INTRODUCTION 

As a linguistic unit, modals are of paramount importance because in 

everyday life people not only talk about truth, but they also express possibility, 

necessity, or prediction—something that is non- or contra-factual or known as 

modality (Lyons, 1977; Palmer, 2001). It is thus likely to notice the use of 

modals in everyday life. As of 2017, the use of modals (from 1990—2017) 

compiled in Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) is 12.451 per 

mailto:ikmi.oktavianti@pbi.uad.ac.id


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one million words or it is 1,2% of the total size of the corpus. Although, 

compare to other functional elements such as article the or preposition in, the 

number is still negligible. 

Apart from the statistical fact, English modals are always interesting to 

examine as they can be studied using various perspectives, such as the 

grammatical aspects (see Quirk, et al., 1985), semantic aspect (Chapin, 1973; 

Coates and Leech, 1980; Perkins, 1982; Coates, 1983; Collins, 2009; de Haan, 

2012; among others), pragmatics and discourse (MacFarlan, 2013; Rubinstein, 

2012; Facchinetti, 2013; Hardjanto, 2016; Adepujo, 2016), diachronic analysis 

(see Brinton, 1991; Krug, 2000; Biber, 2004; Millar, 2009; Leech, et al., 2009; 

Seggewiß, 2012; Lorenz, 2013; Collins, 2014), and corpus-based analysis 

(Francis and Kučera, 1982; Kennedy, 1992; Kennedy, 1998; Biber, et al., 1999; 

Oktavianti, 2016; among others). Investigating modals, however, is not an easy 

task. Holmes (1988) states that studying modals is fairly problematic, even for 

the native speakers of English, let alone for non-native speakers. One modal 

enables multi-interpretation, depends on the contexts. In other words, modal 

meaning is pragmatically challenging to study. As an example, Huddleston 

(1971) describe six (pragmatic) meanings of may, such as may that might 

express (1) qualified generalization, (2) exhaustive disjunction, (3) uncertainty, 

(4) guarantee, (5) legitimation, and (6) ability. Regarding the dynamic 

condition of the society using modals and the compelling aspect of modals, 

hence the study of English modals remains appealing over time, as long as 

language is used. 

In regard to form, besides having the full forms, some modals—the 

periphrastic ones—are shortened, for instance be going to into gonna, have got 

to into gotta, and want to into wanna. While the full forms remain dominant in 

language practice, the use of reduced forms is growing in the last decades. It is 

believed that in the era of World Englishes, the use of reduced modals becomes 

more dynamic and significant. There have been some studies conducted to 

analyze these linguistic units, such as Leech, et al. (2009) and Machova (2015) 

using different corpora as data sources or different perspectives of analysis. 

This study, however, focuses on the use of phonetically reduced modals 

(sometimes it is called ‘reduced modals’ in this paper) in Present-day English, 

in five different English-speaking countries, between two mediums of language 

use, and among three most popular text categories. Nevertheless, this paper, 

will leave the discussion on meaning as it has gained so much attention lately 

and due to its multi-interpretations, and delimit the analysis to frequency of use 

and the sociolinguistic and discourse-related discussion. This study is expected 

to provide preliminary investigation of reduced modal use in Present-day 

English so the results of the study can be used as teaching materials in 

linguistics classes (e.g., sociolinguistics and discourse analysis) as well as a 

reference for further profound studies.  

 

 

 

 



 
 
 

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Corpus Linguistics and Language Use 

This study uses both corpora and sociolinguistics as they work hand in 

hand to describe language use. Both corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics deal 

with ‘real’ language use, and are not based on researcher’s introspection 

(Baker, 2010: 8). Using corpus enables more empirical approach and provides 

richer data to the sociolinguistic analysis. In addition, using corpus can lead to 

faster and more accurate analysis of frequency of use in which frequency is the 

key analysis of corpus linguistics (Biber, et al., 1998) and also an important 

discussion in sociolinguistics. 

Observing language use, it is also necessary to take notes on the medium 

of language use as well as types of text produced, including the use of reduced 

modals. As explained by Halliday (1990), spoken medium and written medium 

have their distinct characteristics in the way spoken language rely much on 

prosodic and paralinguistic aspect in delivering messages. On the contrary, 

written language differs from spoken language since the process of production 

is not spontaneous and revision is thus permitted (Biber and Conrad, 2009). 

Regarding text categories, it is known that each text has its linguistic 

characteristic. News texts and academic texts basically share something in 

common: delivering information. The more detail characteristics, however, 

differ since academic texts also develop arguments and analysis scientifically 

(Biber and Conrad, 2009). Fiction is distinguished from two previous text 

categories because it uses language esthetically and manipulatively to build up 

imaginary world (Leech and Short, 2007). The different characteristics of each 

text category might result in different choices of linguistic units, including the 

use of phonetically reduced modals.  

 

RESEARCH METHOD 

One of the corpora consulted in this study is a synchronic corpus, COCA, 

to depict the frequency of use of phonetically reduced modals. COCA (Davies, 

2008) comprises English language data from enormous and various sources, 

consisting of more than 560 million words, ranging from 1990 to 2017 data 

compilation. Along with COCA, another corpus, Global Web-Based English 

(GloWbe) is used to assist the analysis of use in different English-speaking 

countries. GloWbe compiles English language data, taken from the Internet, 

from 20 regional dialects of English, and consisting of 1,9 billion words. 

Following Leech (1993), to select representative corpus to assist English 

language analysis, three points need to be taken into account, including size of 

the corpus, the homogeneity of the sources, and data collection technique. 

COCA as the primary corpus has fulfilled two criteria (i.e. the size and 

homogeneity—in the subcorpus) and GloWbe has fulfilled one criterion (i.e. 

the size). Some other secondary corpora are used to provide evidence, namely 

Brown Corpus, LOB Corpus (both compiling English language data in 1961), 

and A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers (ARCHER) that 



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comprises English language from Early Modern English Period (1600) to the 

earlier years of  Present-day English (1990). 

The data of this study are frequencies of gonna, wanna, and gotta in 

COCA, GloWbe, Brown, LOB, and ARCHER. The data were collected 

through corpus query in online sites of COCA, GloWbe, ARCHER and using a 

corpus tool, Lancsbox (Brezina, et al., 2015), for Brown and LOB. All the 

reduced modals were searched in the corpora and the search itself was filtered 

using PoS (Parts of Speech) tag to limit the search, although gonna, wanna, and 

gotta are not likely to serve as other word classes in different syntactic 

environment. Once the data were collected, they were normalized (McEnery 

and Hardie, 2012; Brezina, 2018). The normalized frequencies (nf) were then 

interpreted using sociolinguistic and discourse perspectives in order to 

elaborate the factors triggering the dynamic of use in different sociolinguistic 

and discourse context.  

 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 

The Nature of Modals and Phonetically Reduced Modals in Present-day 

English 

Modals are semantic (and pragmatic) means to manifest modality 

expression in propositions (Payne, 2011). Historically they were derived from 

lexical categories (lexical verbs, preterite-present verbs), yet they were being 

grammaticalized into more functional elements and now they differ from 

lexical verbs. The changes result in distinct morphosyntactic and syntactic 

properties of modals and lexical verbs (Collins, 2009: 112; Warner, 2009). The 

features that distinguish modals from lexical verbs are described as NICE 

(Negation, Inversion, Code, Emphasis) (Huddleston, 1976; Warner, 2009; 

Payne, 2011) or also known as Auxiliaryhood (Pullum and Wilson, 1977), 

stating that modals can be negated, inversed, used in tag question and 

emphasized directly, without the assistance of operator do. In addition, 

morphosyntactically modals are not tense-inflected. Their preterite forms do 

not necessarily indicate past tense. Meanwhile, syntactically modals can only 

be followed by infinitive verbs in clauses or sentences. 

According to Quirk, et al. (1985), modals are classified into central 

modals, marginal modals, idiom modals, and semi-auxiliaries. Some other 

experts, however, classify modals in a more simplified way by dichotomizing: 

(1) modals and semi modals (Leech, et al., 2009), (2) modals and quasi-modals 

(Collins, 2009), and (3) plain-modal auxiliaries and semi-auxiliaries (Payne, 

2011). Based on the classification, it is noticed that basically there are two 

major types of modals; they are ‘pure’ modals or central modals or core modals 

(e.g., must, will, would, can, could, shall, should, may, might) and periphrastic 

or phrasal forms equivalent to ‘pure’ modals or known as semi-modals or 

quasi-modals (e.g., be going to, have to, be able to, be supposed to, want to, 

etc.). 

In relation to human nature in minimalizing their efforts in doing 

something (principle of least effort, [Zipf, 1949]), including in using language, 

some periphrastic forms, especially the frequent ones such as be going to or 



 
 
 

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want to are shortened or phonetically reduced. Bussmann (1998) claims that 

phonetic reduction happened to some quasi-modals is the effort to minimalize 

sound articulation and adjust it according to the phonetic environment. Sound 

change of be going to and want to into (be) gonna and wanna are illustrated 

below. 

 

(be) going to [gəʊɪŋ tu:]   gonna [ˈgɒnə]  

want to [wɒnt tu:]    wanna [ˈwɒnə]  

 

The illustration shows that the phonetic change alters velar consonant [ŋ] 

in going to into alveolar consonant [n]. This is plausible since alveolar is closer 

to the mouth or outer part of our vocal tract so the effort to produce the sound is 

more minimal. As stated by Jakobson (1980) the outer the vocal tract used to 

produce the sound, the easier to pronounce the sound, as in bilabials sounds 

that are easier to produce by 6—9 month old babies in babbling stage. As for [t] 

sound in want to is omitted to simplify the pronunciation to make the 

production effort minimal. Unlike gonna and wanna, gotta doesn’t undergo 

consonant change, but vowel change, despite the deletion of have in the initial 

position, as in below. 

 

 (have) got to [ɡɒt tu:]   gotta [ˈgɒtə]  

 

The vowel change can be precisely depicted below. 

 
[u:]    [ə] 

[back vowel]   [central vowel] 

[low vowel]   [mid vowel] 

[rounded vowel]   [unrounded vowel] 

 

The changes from [u:]  [ə] as illustrated above seem to clearly show 

that there is an effort to minimize the ‘energy’ to produce the sound (from back 

to central, from low to mid, from rounded to unrounded). By minimizing the 

effort, language users can produce more utterance; hence deliver more 

messages or information.  

 

Phonetically Reduced Modals in Diachronic Corpora 

Based on the comparison of a diachronic corpus, ARCHER, and a 

synchronic corpus, COCA, it is found that there are two reduced modals 

occupying the first and the fourth position of modal usage frequency. Modals 

gonna and wanna undergo the most significant increase along with other quasi-

modals (be willing to, have got to, be due to), as listed in the following table 

(using normalized frequency per one million words).  

 



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Table 1. Modals with the Most Significant Increase of Usage  

(ARCHER and COCA) 

Rank Modals ARCHER (nf) COCA (nf) Percentage 

change 

1 gonna 3 58 +1,833% 

2 be willing to 15 41 +1,400% 

3 have got to 4 60 +1,400% 

4 wanna 0.79 11 +1,292% 

5 be due to 1 12 +1,100% 

 

Table 1 shows the percentage change (see Brezina, 2018) of modals over 

decades in which the usage frequency of gonna is the highest by having 

1,833% change from Early Modern English (represented by ARCHER) to 

Present-day English (represented by COCA). Similarly, the use of wanna is 

increasing as much as 1,292%. To get more convincing evidence, this study 

displays the frequency of use of reduced modals in two corpora covering the 

earlier years of Present-day English, namely LOB Corpus and Brown Corpus.  

 

Table 2. Usage Frequency of Reduced Modals in LOB and Brown 

Reduced modals LOB Brown 

gonna 0.02 0.06 

wanna 0.03 0.05 

gotta  0.02 0.05 

 

Table 2 presents normalized frequency of use of gonna, wanna, and gotta 

per ten thousand words in LOB and Brown corpus. The table clearly exhibits 

the low frequency of the reduced modals at the time. Meanwhile, ARCHER 

and COCA comparison shows the dramatic escalation of gonna and wanna. 

Therefore, it is assumed that in the last decades use of reduced forms of modals 

has gained much attention among English speakers. It is therefore compelling 

to conduct further investigation on the use of reduced forms of modals, 

focusing on gonna, wanna, and gotta. 

 

Usage Frequency of Phonetically Reduced Modals across Countries  

Using GloWbe, this study analyses phonetically reduced modals in 

English language spoken in the United States (US), Great Britain (GB), 

Australia (AU), Canada (CA), and New Zealand (NZ) that belong to inner 

circle position in world Englishes (Kachru, 2008). The normalized frequencies 

of the modals are shown in the following table. 

 



 
 
 

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Table 3. Frequency of Reduced Modals in Five English-Speaking Countries 

Modals US GB AU CA NZ 

gonna 54 25 20 22 14 

gotta 21 7 7 13 8 

wanna 21 9 9 8 6 

 

Table 3 presents that among five English-speaking countries, it is 

obvious that reduced modals used in US that has the highest frequency (e.g., 54 

times per one million words for gonna), followed by Great Britain, Canada, 

Australia, and New Zealand (with the results show only half of the normalized 

frequency of the US). Compared to other countries displayed in the table, 

English used in New Zealand has the lowest frequency of reduced modals 

usage. This result basically supports some other similar or relevant findings. 

Collins (2014) claims there have been some tendencies in relation to English 

language changes. It is proved that, based on Collins (2014), American English 

is more adjustable to changes, while British English is more conservative. 

Meanwhile, according to Collins (2014), Australian English is more 

linguistically independent, not too conservative as the colonial parent (British 

English), but not too loose as American English. The most important point to 

notice here is the state of English spoken in the US as the leader of changes of 

English language. The discussion of it hence needs to be elaborated in a 

different and more comprehensive work.  

 

Usage Frequency of Phonetically Reduced Modals in Spoken and Written 

English 

The next discussion is about the medium of language use. Considering 

that spoken and written language are distinct, it is also intriguing to depict the 

reduced modal usage in these two media of using language. The table below 

shows the normalized frequency of gonna, wanna, and gotta in spoken and 

written English (as compiled from COCA). 

 

Table 4. Frequency of Reduced Modals in Spoken and Written English 

Modals Spoken Written 

gonna 132  37 

wanna 25 7 

gotta 11 16 

 

Table 4 shows the differences observed such as the use of gonna and 

wanna that are extremely different in these two contexts. In spoken English, 

gonna is found 132 times per one million words, while in written English it is 

found only 37 times per one million words. Similar to gonna, wanna is also 

found more frequent in spoken English (25 times per one million words) than 



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in written English (7 times per one million words). It proves that spoken and 

written English are different, resulting in different choice of linguistic units 

used by the speakers. Hence,g the use of reduced modals in spoken English 

differs from that in written English. 

 

Usage Frequency of Phonetically Reduced Modals in Different Text 

Categories 

The context in which the language is used to determine the linguistic 

choice, including the choice of using reduced modals. In written language, text 

categories hold a crucial part in deciding whether or not to use reduced modals. 

Pivoting in fiction, academic, and news texts, below is the description of 

normalized frequency in these text categories as observed in COCA.   

 

Table 5. Frequency of Reduced Modals in Different Text Categories 

Modals Fiction Academic News 

gonna 22 0.55 8 

gotta 9 0.24 3 

wanna 4 0.16 1 

 

In table 5, it is observed the visible differences of frequency in 

distinguished text categories. Reduced modals, based on the findings, are more 

commonly found in fiction (e.g., gonna is 22 times per one million words) than 

in news texts (e.g., gonna is 8 times per one million words), and between news 

texts and academic texts, it is more commonly used in news text (e.g, gonna in 

academic texts is 0.55 times per one million words). In other words, fiction has 

the highest usage frequency of reduced modals compared to academic and news 

texts. Academic texts seem to avoid the use of reduced modals, while we can 

find the use of reduced modals in news text, even though the number is small, 

but it is still higher than academic texts. Colloquialization also influences the 

use of modals in a particular text; texts that can be influenced with colloquial 

style might use reduced modals more frequently as seen in fiction texts. 

Academic texts, however, seem to avoid reduced forms as reduced forms are 

not the characteristics of standard language. As for news texts, the use of 

reduced modals are in between fiction and academic texts which shows news 

texts are primarily the ‘combination’ of fiction and academic as they are not too 

strict with the use of standard language and attempt to be close to the readers. 

 

Factors Triggering the Dynamic of Use 

Given the findings discussed previously, it is important to note that the 

use of reduced modals is quite dynamic across different period of time, regions, 

mediums, and text categories. In the last centuries (comparing ARCHER and 

COCA), the use of reduced modals is significantly growing, indicating the 

increasing need of language users to use the reduced forms in daily 

communication. The number of use of reduced modals synchronically also 

marks the prominence of reduced forms as they are found in any countries, 



 
 
 

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medium, and text categories, although they are more frequent in English 

language spoken in the US, in spoken English, and in fiction texts. 

To get profound analysis on why reduced modals are dynamic, it is 

necessary to consider the nature of each variable being compared. Different 

frequencies of reduced modals described in the comparison of spoken and 

written English are connected with the nature of the medium. Spoken language 

is, but not always, identical to colloquial style. Reduced forms are the results of 

speakers’ effort to minimize sound production correspond to principle of least 

effort (Zipf, 1949). In accordance with Zipf’s theory, indeed language works 

according to economy principle stating that grammar should be economical so 

it can be learnt easier and faster (van Gelderen, 2004; van Gelderen, 2011). To 

achieve this, grammar must prioritize the necessary mechanism in their system 

to be able to work as efficient as possible. In line with van Gelderen, 

Poedjosoedarmo (2006) argues that grammar should be brief (e.g., no 

redundant forms) for the efficiency of message delivery. From Zipf to van 

Gelderen and Poedjosoedarmo, it is noted that language system—as well as 

language use—should be concise but powerful. 

In relation to language use, it is therefore unsurprising to find the use of 

shortened forms, especially in daily use of language. In daily speaking activity, 

language users tend to be more practical, efficient, and economical, by using 

reduced forms, instead of the full forms. In other words, reduced forms are the 

style of daily use of language, or also linked with colloquial language. As 

defined in Oxford Dictionary of English, colloquial is language used in 

ordinary or familiar conversation. More linguistically, it is defined as a term 

applied to vocabulary and grammar typical of informal style (Brown and 

Miller, 2013). 

In written medium of language use, frequency of reduced modals is not 

as frequent as in the spoken one. It is due to the influence of colloquialization 

in written medium of language use is relatively lower than in spoken language. 

In addition, written language is not spontaneous and provides longer space so 

that reduced forms are unnecessary. On the contrary, spoken language must be 

as efficient as possible, hence reduced modals are preferable to some extent. In 

fact, some written forms of language nowadays are actually more speech-like. 

Affected by the advancement of technology, there are now messaging platforms 

that have the characteristics of spoken language, but use written medium, e.g., 

WhatsApp, Line, WeChat, etc. These messaging applications provide their users 

with two-way interactions, enable the users to have a conversation to the 

interlocutors in written form. In this sort of communication, the style is more 

colloquial, even though it happens in written form. 

Regarding text categories, comparing fiction texts, academic texts, and 

news texts, it is undoubtedly obvious that fiction is more colloquial. In fiction, 

there are some dialogues created by the authors to build up the story and to 

strengthen the traits of the characters. This corresponds to Leech and Short 

(2007) who claim that the language in fiction is used manipulatively to 



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construct the imaginary world. In dialogues the authors are allowed to use 

speech style in which they are colloquial style. This is important to make the 

narrative more realistic and closer to the reader of the fiction. It is noted that 

colloquialization holds crucial role in the choice of reduced modals in a 

particular discourse. In academic texts which standard language rules, the 

frequency of phonetically reduced modals is extremely low (e.g., gonna occurs 

0.55 times per one million words). Furthermore, reduced modals belong to 

semi-modal (or quasi-modal) category in which semi-modals are closely 

associated with colloquialization (Leech, et al., 2009). Hence the use of 

phonetically reduced modals is quite rare in academic context. 

According to the findings, different frequencies of reduced modals also 

occur in different region of English. It marks the language used in each region 

as being a regional dialect. This variety is possible because the society is 

complex, having different background, delivering different needs using 

different ways. Therefore, we can notice different frequencies of phonetically 

reduced modals in which they have the highest frequency in the US English 

language (or American English). Following Collins (2014), American English 

is more adjustable to changes, opposite to British English that is more 

conservative. Not only is American English more adjustable, but it also plays 

its role as leader of changes as known in the term ‘Americanization’ which is 

no longer bizarre. Crystal (2003) says that Americanization includes the 

influence of American English to other English varieties (world Englishes) 

since it has the biggest number of English speakers across the globe. It is 

appealing that although world Englishes is developing, but the vigorous 

influence of American English worldwide is inevitable. From the elaboration, it 

is then evident that basically language use is dynamic and varied since the 

society (i.e. the language user) is complex and dynamic as well. In other words, 

theoretically, language use is phonetically simplified due to efficiency and daily 

basis usage; and it is sociolinguistically colloquialized as the primary medium 

of language is speaking.  

 

CONCLUSION 

To sum up, there are several points that have to be taken into account. 

Over the past decades, the use of reduced modals is sharply increasing, as 

shown by the comparison of ARCHER and COCA. Related to the use of 

phonetically reduced modals in different regions, reduced modals more 

frequently used in the US than in four other English-speaking countries under 

study. It is because English language spoken in the US is more adaptive to 

changes, including to phonetic changes of modals. The results of this study also 

show reduced modals in spoken language are more frequently occur than in 

written language. Alike different regions and different medium of discourse, 

different frequency can be observed in different text categories. Based on the 

findings, reduced modals used in fiction texts are the highest compared to 

academic texts and news texts. Meanwhile, academic texts rarely use reduced 

modals because this text category must follow the standard language. Reduced 

forms are known to be more colloquial but less standard. This phonetic 



 
 
 

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reduction follows the rules of economy principle in language structure and 

language use, in line with principle of least effort proposed by Zipf (1949). In 

general, the use of phonetically reduced modals is affected by colloquialization; 

as for discourse context, it concerns with which type of text that is more 

colloquial that allows the use of reduced modals.  

 

 

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List of Corpora 

COCA  : https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/ 

GloWbe : https://www.english-corpora.org/glowbe/ 



 
 
 

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ARCHER : https://cqpweb.lancs.ac.uk 

LOB  : http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/CoRD/corpora/LOB/ 

Brown              : 

http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/CoRD/corpora/BROWN/index.

html 

 

Corpus tool: 

Lancsbox  : http://corpora.lancs.ac.uk/lancsbox/index.php 

 

Dictionary: 

Oxford Dictionary of English, installed in MacBook Air 2014. 


