A Semantic Analysis of Collect, Gather, Put Together, Assemble, Group, and Amass

Abstract

The field of verb studies suffers from a shortage of research studies and this paper attempts to add some weight to these kinds of studies. Unfortunately, most dictionaries as well as ESL/EFL textbooks do not provide a clear picture of the semantic usage of words. This paper investigates the semantic level of the following verbs: collect, gather, put together, and assemble. While at first glance these words appear to have very similar meanings, and indeed can appear synonymous with one another, each encompasses a different gradient of meaning. The paper describes the semantic usage and different sense of connotation that belong to these words. Additionally, the aim of this paper would be to determine which of the aforementioned verbs American speakers often use in their casual speech as well as in other genres. The framework of the semantic description is laid through the comparison of the definitions of these words from several major dictionaries. Taking into consideration that this probably is not something one can definitely determine unless a large corpus of English is used, the framework of the semantic description is refined through the use of the online corpus collection: Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Many samples of each word have been collected as well as the collocations and contexts wherein they are found.