المستخلص: |
Synonymy is one of the complex linguistic features that learners of English face as a second language. This study investigates the similarities and differences among the four English synonyms, i.e., small, little, tiny, and petite, concerning their genres, comparison, grammatical patterns, and collocations. The data is driven from (COCA) as a native corpus and (CLC) as the non-native. The results of both corpora show that small and little are frequently used, while petite is rarely used in COCA but not used at all in CLC. Besides, little is mainly used in TV and fiction genres, whereas small, tiny and petite are used in news and magazine genres. The grammatical patterns are similar except for one pattern with little in COCA. Further, outcomes unveiled that there is no comparison form for petite in both corpora, whereas; little has two comparison forms with differences in meaning. A few recommendations were suggested by the researchers.
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