EXIST Existential/relationship verbs
Definition
Verbs of existence and relationship: seem, appear, include, contain, represent, etc.
Detection Rules
mfte
cql[word={words} & pos="VB.*"]
Word list (129 items)
appear
appeared
appearing
appears
concern
concerned
concerning
concerns
constitute
constituted
constitutes
constituting
contain
contained
containing
contains
define
defined
defines
defining
derive
derived
derives
deriving
deserve
deserved
deserves
deserving
exist
existed
existing
exists
fit
fits
fitted
fitting
illustrate
illustrated
illustrates
illustrating
implied
implies
imply
implying
include
included
includes
including
indicate
indicated
indicates
indicating
involve
involved
involves
involving
lack
lacked
lacking
lacks
live
lived
lives
living
matter
mattered
mattering
matters
owe
owed
owes
owing
own
owned
owning
owns
possess
possessed
possesses
possessing
reflect
reflected
reflecting
reflects
relate
related
relates
relating
remain
remained
remaining
remains
represent
represented
representing
represents
reveal
revealed
revealing
reveals
seem
seemed
seeming
seems
sound
sounded
sounding
sounds
staid
stand
standing
stands
stay
stayed
staying
stays
stood
suit
suited
suiting
suits
tend
tended
tending
tends
varied
varies
vary
varying
pybiber
cql[word={words} & pos="VB.*"]
Word list (8 items)
appear
appeared
appearing
appears
seem
seemed
seeming
seems
Normalization
Per finite_verbs
Examples
Weren’t they representing Jamaica?
Source: le_foll_2024
It encouraged young athletes to stay.
Source: le_foll_2024
Sources
- biber_1988 — Biber, Douglas (1988) : Variation across Speech and Writing
- mfte — Le Foll, Elen & Shakir, Muhammad (2023/2025) : Multi-Feature Tagger of English (MFTE) — Python version
- pybiber — Brown, David West & Reinhart, Alex (2026) : pybiber — Python package for linguistic feature extraction and Multi-Dimensional Analysis
- xiao_2009 — Xiao, Richard (2009) : Multidimensional analysis and the study of world Englishes
- grieve_2023 — Grieve, Jack (2023) : Register variation explains stylometric authorship analysis
Notes
Biber counted only SEEM/APPEAR for D7; MFTE is broader.