A Corpus-Based Study of English Synonyms and Usage

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This study is intended to do research on English synonyms and usage, based on corpora, by use of which it is possible to gain the following advantages : (1) we will become able to analyze expressions which are not treated in British and American references, (2) we will become able to neutralize native informants' bias which cannot be avoided in small-scale informant tests, (3) we will be able to analyze native speaker's unconscious differentiation of English synonyms, (4) we will become able to objectively clarify phenomena overlooked by native speakers of English, from the viewpoint of non-native speakers.This study adopted the largest corpus in the world, Bank of English (520 million words), which is provided by HarperCollins Publishers and is available through the Internet. This made it possible to make an analysis of even infrequent synonymous expressions we had been compelled to abandon our attempt to analyze because of the small number of extracts from small corpora, and also made it possible to analyze data effectively, employing statistical information, such as frequency, t-score, MI-score, which are essential for analysis of collocations.The report contains the following ten papers : (1) fall, (2) quiet and silent, (3) whether and if, (4) if A were to do and if A should do, (5) baggage and luggage, (6) keep (on) doing, (7) heavy and hard, (8) not only A but also B, (9) each of them, (10) not to do and to not do.