This essay is a corpus study, the aim of which is to investigate the usage of two near-synonymous verb pairs that descend from Germanic and Romance languages. The four verbs begin, commence, hate, and detest were chosen for the study. The analysis is based on occurrences of the verbs in five subcorpora in the COBUILDDIRECT corpus; two subcorpora consist of British and American books and three subcorpora are composed of British and Australian newspapers. Occurrences were also collected from the novel Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë. The primary aims of the essay are to investigate the frequency and occurrence of the verbs in different text types as well as in British and American books, to reveal if the verbs are synonymous and whether they occur with the same collocates. Furthermore, the novel Wuthering Heights gives a diachronic view of the usage of the verbs. This analysis suggests that a usage of the verbs of Germanic origin is more frequent than the verbs of Romance origin. The Romance verbs are more common in novels and books, but also in the British newspaper The Times. Furthermore, the usage of commence and detest seems to be restricted to certain contexts which are connected to the field of the English language in which the verbs occurred at first. The Germanic verbs are clearly favoured in all kinds of texts investigated, even though Wuthering Heights has a high number of occurrences of commence. On the topic of synonymy, begin and commence have been found to be further apart from each other than hate and detest. This is due to the fact that begin and commence are constructed grammatically different, as well as a restriction in contextual usage of commence. Despite this, commence is used more freely in American books than in British books. The synonymy of hate and detest is connected to the fact that detest expresses a stronger feeling than hate, which makes the two verbs near-synonymous but also gradable. The verbs in the two pairs also collocate with different words, which underlines that they are not real synonyms. These findings support the claim that one should not call the verb pairs synonyms but near-synonyms, and that one has to be careful when choosing a verb.

Ideofoner används flitigt i japanska och är viktiga att lära sig men bjuder på stora svårigheter för andraspråkstalare. Den här studien undersöker vilka sammanhang japanska ideofoner används i, specifikt vilka verb som ofta modifieras av ideofoner och vilka dessa ideofoner är. En japansk bloggkorpus på 5,5 miljarder tokens delades upp i tokens, ordklasstaggades, dependensparsades och söktes igenom. Vid en signifikansnivå på 0,001 hittades 2398 verb som ofta modifieras av ideofoner och 52719 kollokationer av verb och ideofoner, medan antalet unika ideofoner var 756. Detta visar att ideofoner används i en stor mängd sammanhang där det finns en relation mellan ideofon och verb. De 20 högst rankade kollokationerna undersöktes mer ingående och innehöll till största delen skildringar av sinnesintryck som är ovanliga att uttrycka med ideofoner i många språk, och som därmed kan vara svåra för många andraspråkstalare. / Ideophones are widely used in Japanese and are important to learn, but present big challenges for L2 speakers. This study investigates the contexts that ideophones in Japanese occur in, specifically what verbs are often modified by ideophones and those ideophones. A Japanese blog corpus consisting of 5.5 billion tokens was split up into tokens, tagged with part of speech and dependency relations and then searched. At a significance level of 0.001, 2398 verbs were found to often be modified by ideophones, and 52179 collocations of verbs and ideophones were found. The number of unique ideophones were 756. This shows that ideophones are used in many contexts where there is a relationship between ideophone and verb. The 20 highest ranked collocations were examined. Most contained depictions of sensory imagery normally not expressed by ideophones in many languages, and which might therefore be difficult for many L2 speakers.

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An important component of nativelike language production is linked to the knowledge of near-synonyms and their collocational patterns. The purpose of this corpus-based study was three-fold: (a) an examination of the frequency distribution across registers of the three near-synonyms change, alter, and modify; (b) their collocational patterns; and (c) their interchangeability. A lexical study on their distribution across registers in the BNC was conducted, examining the collocational strength between near-synonyms and their collocations in Sketch Engine. Subsequently, attempts were made to determine the potential interchangeability of the near-synonyms. The comparative analysis indicates that the near-synonyms differ from each other with reference to formality, as alter and modify tend to be used more in written and formal language than change. Further to this, and to some extent, they reveal different collocational patterns. More specifically, they often did not share collocates, although the verbs were near-synonyms. Change was more polysemous than alter and modify, which have more restricted collocational patterns. Furthermore, the interchangeability of change and alter were higher than for modify. Nevertheless, the formality and meaning were affected as change is less formal than alter and modify. The findings from the analyses are of value to second language learners and can support further knowledge in the field of linguistics, specific to near-synonyms and collocations.

This diploma thesis deals with the representation of gender in children's literature, namely in the book series The Chronicles of Narnia. The theoretical part discusses gender linguistics, characterizes children's literature and discusses the issue of gender stereotypes in this type of literature. The analytical part of the paper focuses on the collocations of proper names of the four main characters (two female, two male) and the pronouns he/she/I referring to them. Attention will also be paid to common names related to gender: girl(s), boy(s). The material consists of 300 examples. The thesis examines both left-side and right-side collocates (mainly adjectives and verbs) of these nouns and pronouns and their semantics. The thesis determines the semantic types of collocates the words under study are associated with and examines the differences between the depiction of male and female characters, i.e. how the characters are described, what characteristics are typically attributed to them, what actions they perform and so on. The thesis provides an analysis of gender-related collocational patterns in children's literature and hopes to contribute to a greater understanding of gender-based language in general, as well as possible stereotyping effects on the child reader. keywords: gender, gender...

An important component of nativelike language production is linked to the knowledge of near-synonyms and their collocational patterns. The purpose of this corpus-based study was three-fold: (a) an examination of the frequency distribution across registers of the three near-synonyms change, alter, and modify; (b) their collocational patterns; and (c) their interchangeability. A lexical study on their distribution across registers in the BNC was conducted, examining the collocational strength between near-synonyms and their collocations in Sketch Engine. Subsequently, attempts were made to determine the potential interchangeability of the near-synonyms. The comparative analysis indicates that the near-synonyms differ from each other with reference to formality, as alter and modify tend to be used more in written and formal language than change. Further to this, and to some extent, they reveal different collocational patterns. More specifically, they often did not share collocates, although the verbs were near-synonyms. Change was more polysemous than alter and modify, which have more restricted collocational patterns. Furthermore, the interchangeability of change and alter were higher than for modify. Nevertheless, the formality and meaning were affected as change is less formal than alter and modify. The findings from the analyses are of value to second language learners and can support further knowledge in the field of linguistics, specific to near-synonyms and collocations.

The purpose of this study is to examine what contemporary corpora can reveal about the use of the two adjectives evil and wicked. These two synonyms have been analysed using corpus linguistics in order to acquire results about the differences between them regarding frequency of use, as well as their collocating nouns. The results have also been analysed with a focus on gender perspectives. The study has a quantitative as well as a qualitative approach. The material investigated for this study consists of a corpus called The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The definitions of the two adjectives have also been searched within a few of the greater dictionaries. The findings reveal that the word evil is used to a greater extent by speakers and writers in different contexts in comparison to its synonym wicked. There are also significant differences between male and female nouns in adjective and noun collocations. The adjective evil is more frequently used to address male nouns, whereas its synonym wicked is more widely used as an attribute to female nouns. The differences are aligned with common gender stereotypes presented in previous studies and support the results regarding gender approaches in adjective and noun collocations.

Thèse réalisée en cotutelle avec l'Université Paris Diderot (Paris 7) / Cette thèse porte sur l’élaboration d’un modèle de structuration des relations lexicales, fondé sur les fonctions lexicales de la Théorie Sens-Texte [Mel’cuk, 1997]. Les relations lexicales considérées sont les dérivations sémantiques et les collocations telles qu’elles sont définies dans le cadre de la Lexicologie Explicative et Combinatoire [Mel’cuk et al., 1995]. En partant du constat que ces relations lexicales ne sont pas décrites ni présentées de façon satisfaisante dans les bases de données lexicales, nous posons la nécessité d’en créer un modèle de structuration. Nous justifions l’intérêt de créer un système de fonctions lexicales puis détaillons les quatre perspectives du système que nous avons mises au point : une perspective sémantique, une perspective axée sur la combinatoire des éléments d’une relation lexicale, une perspective centrée sur leurs parties du discours, ainsi qu’une perspective mettant en avant l’élément sur lequel se focalise la relation. Le système intègre l’ensemble des fonctions lexicales, y compris les fonctions lexicales non standard, dont nous proposons une normalisation de l’encodage. Le système a été implémenté dans la base de données lexicale du DiCo. Nous présentons trois applications dans lesquelles il peut être exploité. Premièrement, il est possible d’en dériver des interfaces de consultation pour les bases de données lexicales de type DiCo. Le système peut également être directement consulté en tant qu’assistant à l’encodage des relations lexicales. Enfin, il sert de référence pour effectuer un certain nombre de calculs sur les informations lexicographiques, qui pourront, par la suite, être implémentés pour automatiser la rédaction de certains champs de fiches lexicographiques. / This thesis proposes a model for structuring lexical relations, based on the concept of lexical functions (LFs) proposed in Meaning-Text Theory [Mel’cuk, 1997]. The lexical relations taken into account include semantic derivations and collocations as defined within this theoretical framework, known as Explanatory and Combinatorial Lexicology [Mel’cuk et al., 1995]. Considering the assumption that lexical relations are neither encoded nor made available in lexical databases in an entirely satisfactory manner, we assume the necessity of designing a new model for structuring them. First of all, we justify the relevance of devising a system of lexical functions rather than a simple classification. Next, we present the four perspectives developped in the system: a semantic perspective, a combinatorial one, another one targetting the parts of speech of the elements involved in a lexical relation, and, finally, a last one emphasizing which element of the relation is focused on. This system covers all LFs, even non-standard ones, for which we have proposed a normalization of the encoding. Our system has already been implemented into the DiCo relational database. We propose three further applications that can be developed from it. First, it can be used to build browsing interfaces for lexical databases such as the DiCo. It can also be directly consulted as a tool to assist lexicographers in encoding lexical relations by means of lexical functions. Finally, it constitutes a reference to compute lexicographic information which will, in future work, be implemented in order to automatically fill in some fields within the entries in lexical databases.

Cette thèse porte sur l’élaboration d’un modèle de structuration des relations lexicales, fondé sur les fonctions lexicales de la Théorie Sens-Texte [Mel’cuk, 1997]. Les relations lexicales considérées sont les dérivations sémantiques et les collocations telles qu’elles sont définies dans le cadre de la Lexicologie Explicative et Combinatoire [Mel’cuk et al., 1995]. En partant du constat que ces relations lexicales ne sont pas décrites ni présentées de façon satisfaisante dans les bases de données lexicales, nous posons la nécessité d’en créer un modèle de structuration. Nous justifions l’intérêt de créer un système de fonctions lexicales puis détaillons les quatre perspectives du système que nous avons mises au point : une perspective sémantique, une perspective axée sur la combinatoire des éléments d’une relation lexicale, une perspective centrée sur leurs parties du discours, ainsi qu’une perspective mettant en avant l’élément sur lequel se focalise la relation. Le système intègre l’ensemble des fonctions lexicales, y compris les fonctions lexicales non standard, dont nous proposons une normalisation de l’encodage. Le système a été implémenté dans la base de données lexicale du DiCo. Nous présentons trois applications dans lesquelles il peut être exploité. Premièrement, il est possible d’en dériver des interfaces de consultation pour les bases de données lexicales de type DiCo. Le système peut également être directement consulté en tant qu’assistant à l’encodage des relations lexicales. Enfin, il sert de référence pour effectuer un certain nombre de calculs sur les informations lexicographiques, qui pourront, par la suite, être implémentés pour automatiser la rédaction de certains champs de fiches lexicographiques. / This thesis proposes a model for structuring lexical relations, based on the concept of lexical functions (LFs) proposed in Meaning-Text Theory [Mel’cuk, 1997]. The lexical relations taken into account include semantic derivations and collocations as defined within this theoretical framework, known as Explanatory and Combinatorial Lexicology [Mel’cuk et al., 1995]. Considering the assumption that lexical relations are neither encoded nor made available in lexical databases in an entirely satisfactory manner, we assume the necessity of designing a new model for structuring them. First of all, we justify the relevance of devising a system of lexical functions rather than a simple classification. Next, we present the four perspectives developped in the system: a semantic perspective, a combinatorial one, another one targetting the parts of speech of the elements involved in a lexical relation, and, finally, a last one emphasizing which element of the relation is focused on. This system covers all LFs, even non-standard ones, for which we have proposed a normalization of the encoding. Our system has already been implemented into the DiCo relational database. We propose three further applications that can be developed from it. First, it can be used to build browsing interfaces for lexical databases such as the DiCo. It can also be directly consulted as a tool to assist lexicographers in encoding lexical relations by means of lexical functions. Finally, it constitutes a reference to compute lexicographic information which will, in future work, be implemented in order to automatically fill in some fields within the entries in lexical databases. / Thèse réalisée en cotutelle avec l'Université Paris Diderot (Paris 7)

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