consists of frequency pattern of near-synonym, nominal collocations measured by raw frequencies, nominal collocations measured by MI-score, comparison list
measured by raw frequency and MI-score and the stylistic variation of the near- synonym. COCA provides all the data of this quantitative analysis. As stated on
the research background there is a central shared meaning between near- synonyms. For this present study, it is writer
’s objective to identify these central and peripheral meanings.
B. Research Question
This study is focusing on verbs prohibit and forbid answering one problem formulation which is what are the collocation differences of synonymous words
prohibit and forbid?
B. Methodology
Research method applied in this study was divided into two parts. First the qualitative method and second the quantitative method.
The qualitative method of the study consist of the description of the dictionaries of near-synonyms prohibit and forbid. Meriam 2002 sataes that
qualitative research is characterized by the search of meaning and understanding and it becomes the main instrument of data collection and analysis. Ary, Jacobs,
and Sorensen 2010 states the goal of qualitative research is a whole picture and depth of understanding. Three online dictionaries were used in this study, there
were The Macmillan Dictionary, The Collins American Dictionary and The Meriam Webster Dictionary. The data was collected from those three online
dictionaries, therefore content analysis was an appropriate method. As stated by Ary et al. 2010 that content analysis focuses on analysing and interpreting
recorded material. Quantitative research was important to compare synonymous words Biber
et al., 2002 and the objective of quantitative research was to gather numerical data. This study only used simple quantitative research that gatherting the data
which were presented by frequency and precentage of the occurance of the synonymous words. The quantitative method which involves computation of
collocations or experimental result was used in this study. It also can be seen in Church, Gale, Hanks, Hindle and Moon 1994 in which the verb request and ask
for were compared in terms of substitutability. Taylor 2002 also had some studies which carried out experiments in order to test similarities and differences
of near-synonyms. Taylor contrasted the adjective tall and high using acceptability rating task in which subject were asked to rate whether the use of
these two adjectives was acceptable under different context. Taylor claimed that the dominant fixed landmark in both and the recessive dimentional uses for tall
and positional uses for high meanings of two adjectives could be found. First of all, The Macmillan Dictionary, The Collins American Dictionary
and The Meriam Webster Dictionary were examined how they defined the synonyms. The description of the dictionaries pointed out the similarities or the
central semantic traits and differences or peripheral semantic traits of the near- synonyms prohibit and forbid. If the near-synonyms were defined in terms of their
neighbouring lexical items, this suggests that their semantic traits were overlap. If
they were not defined through none of their near-synonyms, this might indicate that they were not used synonymously and their semantic traits differ remarkably.
Second, the data in COCA was queried for the overall frequency patterns. The nominal collocations of the near-synonyms were examined and measured by
raw frequencies and the Mutual Information MI-score. The nominal collocations in this study focus on the left collocation which is as the subject of the near-
synonyms. The MI-score above 3 suggest that two words often collocate with each other. In the present study, the MI-score is the only applied statistical
measurement since the MI-score usually examines content words to which category adjectives belong as Liu 2010, p. 63 described. The result was sorted
from the top list of the collocating nouns measured by raw frequency and compared the nouns to see if the adjectives modify the same words. Then the
nouns were categorized into lexical groups which later were used for gathering more insights about the type of nouns the adjectives modify.
Third, the procedure was repeated but with the nominal collocations measured by MI-score. Top lists were created and the nouns were grouped into
certain categories. Moreover, the top lists measured by raw frequency and by MI- score were compared and it was analyzed if the corpus research could confirm the
definitions of the dictionary entries of the qualitative method. The last, the register in which they nominal collocations most frequently
occur was investigated. The top list of the nominal collocations of each of the adjectival near-synonyms measured by MI-score was examined since the MI-
score reveals more interesting aspects of the usage patterns and fixed expression.
8
CHAPTER II DISCUSSION
This chapter consists of review of related literature and findings. First the results of the qualitative analysis are outlined. Second, the outcome of the
quantitative analysis is presented.
A. Qualitative Analysis of The Dictionary Entries of The Near-Synonyms
Qualitative analysis is the interpretation of definitions of dictionary entries of the near-synonyms. Cruse 1986, p. 265 said that there are sets of words or
lexical items which point towards a special similarity. Synonym, however as Cruse 2004, p. 154 has explained, it should not simply be considered as
sameness of meaning because the analysis of identical meaning is unnecessary and redundant. Divjack 2006, p. 21 adds to the understanding of synonyms that
if they describe one and the same situation, they name it different ways and they represent it from different perspectives. To avoid the assumption of the sameness
of meaning, Cruse 2004 additionally suggests that there are some groups of synonyms which bear a closer semantic resemblance than other sets. Normally
there are three kinds of synonym. The first is absolute synonym, it is defined as lexical items which could be
used interchangeable in all contexts. However, it is impossible to check all these contextual relations Cruse; 1986, p. 268 and therefore if they exist they would
be extremely uncommon Cruse; 1986, p. 270.
The second is cognitive synonym. Cruse 1986, p. 270 defines cognitive synonyms as lexical items which have certain semantic properties in common.
Semantic mode is a term used in addressing these semantic properties which divided into the propositional mode and the expressive mode. The propositional
mode is expressed by the form of the sentence, if the sentence expresses a statement, question, command, exclamation etc. Whereas the meaning of
propositional meaning is determined by the truth condition uttered in the sentence. The truth condition does not play a role in the expressive meaning of lexical item.
Later Cruse 1986, p. 273 describes words are defined as cognitive synonyms if they share the propositional meaning but differ in their expressive modes.
The third is near-synonym. Cruse 1986, p. 285 states the third group of synonyms as plesionyms, whereas other experts Edmonds Hirts; 2002, p. 107;
Storjohann; 2009, p. 2140 refer to them as near-synonyms. Cruse 1986, p. 285 contrast near-synonym from cognitive synonyms since they express different truth
conditions in a given context. If two parallel structured sentences differ only in the use of the near-synonym, they are not mutually entailing. However, if the near-
synonyms stand in a hyponymous relation, they can be unilaterally entailed. In this case, one part of the near-synonyms can be asserted but it denies the other
part at the same time. Cruse 1986 gives examples to illustrate his assumptions: “It wasn’t foggy last Friday – just misty. He was not murdered, he was legally
executed.” Foggy and misty, as well as, murdered and executed are in hyponymous
relation, are close in meaning and can be accounted as near-synonyms not as
