ABSTRACT
It is now widely recognized in linguistic research that corpora are useful, if not necessary, for some forms of linguistic research. Using a corpus, the linguist can make more objective statements than introspective analysis permits, and state frequencies in a variety of uses of the language. No individual can be expected to have an adequate command of the whole grammatical repertoire of a language, and no grammarian can be expected to describe adequately the grammatical properties of the whole repertoire from his or her own unsupplemented resources. Even when linguists are working in those areas of the repertoire in which they are most likely to be thoroughly competent (for example informal conversation) it is difficult to guard against idiolectal bias, accidental omissions and distortions, in the absence of objective data.
