CONFIRM

a) Keyness

The lemma ‘confirm’ was the two hundred and seventy-third most significant key word in the BEC corpus.

N	Word	Freq.	bec.lst %	Freq.	bnc.lst %	Keyness	P
273	CONFIRM	199	0.2	119	-	105.	0.00000

b) Semantic Prosody

n = 91

No clear groups identified, but see colligation section below.

c) Three-word clusters

N	cluster	Freq.
1	to confirm that	8
2	to confirm the	8
3	confirm that the	7
4	can you confirm	6
5	I can confirm	4
6	pleased to confirm	4

d) Macro-generic distribution

e) Colligation

COBUILD Sense 1 (to confirm what you believe, suspect or fear)

3 instances - 3.29% of sample

Patterns: Verb-noun

They confirm people’s prejudices, Bill Morton can confirm the strength of the negotiating process.

COBUILD Sense 2 (to confirm something has been stated or suggested)

22 instances - 24.17% of sample

Patterns: Verb-noun/verb-that

he cannot confirm a Korean television report, Home Products of New Jersey confirm that they have been talking to ....

COBUILD Sense 3 (to confirm an arrangement or appointment)

Patterns: Verb/verb-noun

66 instances - 72.52% of sample

confirm all instructions, confirm our phone conversation, I can confirm that I will visit Cork.

Other patterns:

i) personal pronoun + confirm + that:

18 instances - 19.78% of sample

ii) verb + to + confirm/ verb + noun + to + confirm:

26 instances - 28.57% of sample

I am writing to confirm, requested engineers to confirm

f) Associates

The word ‘confirm’ was key in 4 files. No associates > =5 were found.