Corpus linguistic methods are discussed in the context of the automatic extraction of a candidate terminology of a specialist domain of knowledge. Collocation analysis of the candidate terms leads to some insight into the ontological commitment of the domain community or collective. The candidate terminology and ontology can be easily verified and validated and subsequently may be used in the construction of information extraction systems and of knowledge-based systems. The use of the methods is illustrated by an investigation of the ontological commitment of four major collectives: nuclear physics, cell biology, linguistics and anthropology. An analysis of a diachronic corpus allows an insight into changes in basic concepts within a specialism; an analysis of a corpus comprising texts published during a short and fixed time period –a synchronic corpus- shows how different sub-specialisms within a collective commit themselves to an ontology.