BY phrases – English Grammar Profiler

In this post we explore the ways ‘by’ is tagged in large corpora such as iWeb and NOW.

1 BY (II) is clearly most commonly found to be a simple preposition.

What we think happened,

 but we don’t know for sure, 

one killed the other,

 either on purpose or by accident.

And then took his own life, drowned himself.

Cassandra’s Dream

2 BY (II31) (complex prepositional phrase)

1 BY WAY OF 81460 C1

Second, the other sentences which make up the body of the paragraph should support the topic sentence 

by way of explaining or defining it.

PELIC STUDENT: Korean female, level 5 writing class.

2  BY MEANS OF 79143 C1

However, it is wrong that you generalize Japanese by means of observing [the] only one person subjectively.

Japanese male, level 5 reading class.

3  BY REASON OF 25142

We find the defendant not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.

listen

3 BY (RR21) (adverbial phrase)

BY FAR 174076

4 BY (RT21)(time)

BY NOW 123734

You ought to be pretty knowledgeable by now, then.

listen

5 BY (RR31) 93770

1  BY NO MEANS 68471

Might I remind you gentlemen that this war is by no means won.

The Tuskegee Airmen

This is similar to:

We get it by any means necessary.

listen

2  BY AND LARGE 18474

It‘s been a good thing for the prison, by and large.

listen

3  BY AND BY 3394
4  BY THE BY 1785

6 BY (RR41) 1674

BY FAR AND AWAY 1626

7 BY (NP1) 186 (proper nouns = names)
8 BY (RP) 168 (particle)

1 GO BY 27901 2 STOP BY 25013 3 GET BY 23424 4 CLOSE BY 17170 5 WENT BY 12069 6 GOES BY 11831 7 STOPPING BY 11275 8 COME BY 9844 9 PASS BY 8267

10 STOPPED BY 6740