The use of corpus evidence for studying syntactic and semantic differences of “Hope, Want, Wish.”

Abstract

This study aims to examine syntactic and semantic differences among three verbs, “Hope, Want, Wish,” based upon corpus evidence. There are two research questions in the present study: 1. how are “Hope, Want, Wish” different in terms of the verb-following syntactic structures ((i) infinitive, (ii) (that) clause, (iii) direct object + infinitive, (iv) direct object, (v) indirect object + direct object, (vi) others)? 2. what are the semantic differences among “Hope, Want, Wish?” To figure out these research questions, BROWN corpus for written corpus and Santa Barbara corpus for spoken corpus were used. The results showed that considerable syntactic and semantic differences existed among “Hope, Want, Wish.” As for the verb-following syntactic structures, “Hope” took i, ii, v, vi; “Want,” i, iii, iv, vi; “Wish,” all the categories from i to vi. In semantic differences, “Hope vs. Wish” and “Want vs. Wish” were distinguishable according to the degree of possibility and formality, whereas “Hope vs. Want” displayed interchangeable meanings. The findings of this study can have educational implications on the teaching method for Korean EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners to learn English verbs “Hope, Want, Wish” in more practical way.