Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Anna Janíkova

A Semantic Analysis (conceal and hide)

Bachelor's Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, CSc.

2018
 / declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

Author's signature
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my supervisor PhDr. Naděžda Kudrnáčová, C S c . for her
patient guidance, valuable advice and kind encouragement. Let me also express my
thanks to Vít Regner, M a t ú š Kiša and Gabriela Kunatová for their help and support.
Table of contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Theoretical background 3
2.1 The key concepts of meaning 4
2.1.1 Types of meaning 4
2.1.2 Distinguishing between sense and reference 9
2.1.3 Sense relations and lexical fields 12
2.2 Synonymy 20
2.2.1 Approaches to synonymy 21
2.2.2 Types of synonyms 23
2.2.3 Methods for testing synonymy 24
2.3 Collocation (A word in context) 26
2.3.1 Defining'collocations' 27
2.3.2 Collocational restrictions 28
2.3.3 British National Corpus and Contemporary Corpus of American English 30

3 Analytical part 32
3.1 Dictionary analysis 34
3.1.1 Dictionaries of the English language 34
3.1.2 Thesauri and dictionaries of synonyms 50
3.2 Real life usage: Corpus analysis 61
3.2.1 General frequency 61
3.2.2 Text-types: Registers 63
3.2.3 Collocation: objects 68
3.2.4 Collocation: modifiers 83

4 Summary 92
Conclusion 99
Bibliography 101
Czech resume 104
English resume 105
1 Introduction
The aim of the present thesis is to provide a semantic analysis of the verbs

conceal and hide. It seeks to contrast and compare these two lexemes which are often

regarded as synonyms. The focus presents differences between these two verbs. For

the purposes of the analysis several approaches and methods are employed. First, the

crucial theoretical background is introduced. Following is the semantic analysis of

the lexemes conceal and hide. The thesis seeks to examine the semantic content of

the verbs as well as their collocational behaviour, with the help of various dictionaries

and thesauri of the English language and two major English corpora: the British

National Corpus ( B N C ) and the Contemporary Corpus of American English

( C O C A ) , which provide information about the nuances in the meanings of conceal

and hide as well as their actual use in language.

The thesis is divided into five main parts: introduction, theoretical part,

analytical part, summary and conclusion. The theoretical part focuses on establishing

the necessary theoretical background for the subsequent semantic analyses of the

lexemes hide and conceal. It is divided into four chapters. The first chapter focuses

on 'word meaning'. It defines its key concepts and distinguishes between several

types of 'meaning'. Then, it establishes the distinction between two closely related

semantic concepts 'sense' and 'reference'. Lastly, it discusses the notion of 'sense

relations' and to them closely related concept of 'sematic fields'. The second chapter

is devoted to the semantic relation of 'synonymy'. It introduces several approaches

to synonymy designed by prominent linguists, it distinguishes between several types

of 'synonymy' and subsequently it discusses some of the methods for testing the

synonymity. The last chapter of the theoretical part focuses on 'collocation' and how

it is traditionally defined. Then it presents the notion of 'collocational restrictions'

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Finally, it introduces two English language corpora: the B N C and C O C A , which are

the tools used for the corpus analysis of the verbs hide and conceal, performed in the

analytical part.

The analytical part of the thesis is divided into two chapters. The first chapter

provides the dictionary analysis of the two synonymous verbs. The words are

examined in selected dictionaries of the English language, English thesauri and

several dictionaries of synonyms with the aim to compare their conceptual meanings.

The second chapter consists of the corpus analysis, which seeks to expose the

collocational behaviour of the verbs and their actual language use. The analysis

works primarily with the data from the B N C , which are then compared with the

results from C O C A . The corpus analysis is divided into four sections: The first

section deals with the general frequencies of conceal and hide, the second examines

the different registers and text-types in which the words appear, the third looks at the

objects with which the verbs collocate, and the last section is devoted to examining

the collocating modifiers. The results of the semantic analysis are then commented

on in the summary. Finally, the whole thesis is summarized in the conclusion.

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2 Theoretical background

This section of the thesis provides the necessary theoretical background to the

semantic analysis of the synonymous verbs conceal and hide. It is divided into three main

chapters which are further subdivided into several subchapters. These chapters introduce

some of the most fundamental concepts of lexical semantics.

The first chapter introduces some of the key concept of word meaning. It w i l l

primarily discuss what is 'meaning' and what types of 'meaning' can be distinguished.

Then, it mentions two important and related concepts of 'sense' and 'reference'. Finally,

it presents two interrelated semantic concepts of 'sense relations' and 'semantic fields.'

The second chapter focuses on 'synonymy'. First, it introduces various definitions

and approaches to synonymy invented by several linguists. Then, it distinguishes between

various types of synonymy. This chapter is concluded with a short section, which

introduces some of the methods which can be used for investigating synonyms. One of

those methods, that is the method of investigating opposites of synonymous words, w i l l

later be used in the analytical part in the third chapter, section 3.1.2 "Thesauri and

dictionaries of synonyms", where the common antonyms of conceal and hide are

contemplated.

The last chapter concerning the theoretical background is devoted to ' collocation'.

It presents several definitions of collocation and it discusses the 'collocational

restrictions' of a word. The chapter ends with a brief introduction of two English language

corpora: the British National Corpus and the Contemporary Corpus of American English.

These corpora w i l l be used in the practical part as the primary tools of the corpus analysis

of the collocational behaviour of the verbs conceal and hide.

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2.1 The key concepts of meaning

Semantics is generally understood to be the study o f meaning'. However, to date,

there has been little agreement among linguists on what 'meaning' means, and no

universal definition of this ambiguous and contentious term has been invented so far.

Palmer (1981: 3) and Lyons (1995: 3) agree that the verb 'mean' as well as the noun

'meaning' have several distinguishable meanings and can be used in a wide range of

contexts. Although it remains unclear what 'meaning' is, Lobner (2002), A l l a n (2001)

and others distinguish between distinct levels of meaning, at which words and sentences

are interpreted. Lobner defines 'expression meaning', 'utterance meaning',

'communicative meaning'. (2002: 3) 'Expression meaning' he defines as "the meaning

of a simple or complex expression taken in isolation", 'utterance meaning' as "the

meaning of an expression when used in a given context of utterance; fixed reference and

truth value (for declarative sentence)" and communicative meaning as "the meaning o f

an utterance as a communicative act in a given social setting", (ibid.)

Since the 'expression meaning' or more concretely 'word meaning' presents the

focus of this thesis, the aim of this section is to present some of the basic concepts of

'word meaning'. First, it differentiates between distinct types of meaning, then it specifies

two semantic concepts 'sense' and 'reference' and finally it introduces the notion of

'semantic fields' and 'lexical relations'.

2.1.1 Types of meaning

Leech distinguishes seven basic types of meaning: 'conceptual', 'connotative',

'social', 'affective', 'reflected', 'collocative' and 'thematic'. (1981: 9) Conceptual

meaning (alternatively called 'denotative' or 'cognitive' meaning) is the basic meaning

of a word. It is attached to a word and it does not depend on the context the word occurs

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in. When people look up a particular word in a dictionary, they find its conceptual

meaning. In contrast to the other types of meaning, Leech characterizes conceptual

meaning as being "integral to the essential functioning of a language". (1981: 9)

Connotative meaning Leech describes as "the communicative value an expression

has by virtue of what it refers to, over and above its purely conceptual content", (ibid., 12)

More specifically, he characterizes connotative meaning as "the 'real world' experience

once associated with an expression when one uses or hears it." (ibid.) In comparison with

conceptual meaning, connotative meaning is only peripheral to language, while

connotations are unstable and tend to change through time and they differ in cultures as

well as from individual to individual, (ibid.)

Social and affective meaning depend on situation in which an utterance takes

place. Social meaning carries information about the geographical and/or social origin of

the speaker. From social meaning can also be deduced the relationship between the

speaker and hearer, due to a scale of 'status' usage, with formal and literary language on

one end of the scale to colloquial, familiar and finally slang language on the other end.

(Leech 1981: 14) Leech (ibid.) further mentions 6 dimensions of socio-stylistic variation

first published by Crystal and Davy in Investigating English Style; there are variations

according to "(1) dialect (the language of a geographical region or of a social class), (2)

time (language characteristic for a particular historical period), (3) province (language of

a specialised field), (4) status (the language can be, for instance, formal, informal,

colloquial, etc.), (5) modality (e.g. the language of lectures), (6) singularity (e.g. the style

of a prominent author), (ibid.) Leech perceives the style dimensions of 'status' as

particularly important in distinguishing between synonymous expressions. Words with

the same conceptual meaning are said to rarely possess also the same stylistic 'status',

(ibid., 15)

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 Affective meaning reflects the personal feelings of the speaker, as well as his or

her attitudes toward the listener and their attitude toward the topic of conversation.

Affective meaning is conveyed through "the conceptual or connotative content of the

words used", (ibid.) A significant role in conveying affective meaning plays the speaker's

tone of voice. Affective meaning can also be considered a parasitic category, while it is

not central to conveying emotions in the way that conceptual, connotative, or stylistic

meaning is. One of the exceptions, however, are interjections (Aha! Yippee!), the main

function of which is to express emotions only, (ibid., 16)

Reflected meaning arises in cases when one sense of a word becomes a response
1

to its another sense. Leech names the following illustrative example from his personal

experience from a church service: even though the synonymous expressions the

Comforter and the Holy Ghost both refer to the Third Person of the Trinity, Leech finds

their meanings shaped by the everyday non-religious meanings of comfort and ghost. The

Comforter then sounds rather warm and comforting, in contrast, the Holy Ghost, which

may to the hearer suggest the sense of being 'awesome' or even 'dreadful', (ibid.) In

reflected meaning, "one sense of a words seems to 'rub o f f on another sense in this way

only when it has a dominant suggestive power either through relative frequency or

through the strength of its associations." (ibid.) Reflected meaning can be well-illustrated

by words with a taboo meaning as, for example, words connected to sex. The expressions

like intercourse, ejaculation, and erection increasingly strongly remind people of sex and

therefore nowadays people use them in their 'innocent', sex non-related senses seldom.

For instance, people have ceased to use the word intercourse for 'communication'. Taboo

contamination of words eventually leads to dying-out of non-taboo senses of words,

(ibid., 17)

1
In this section, the term sense is used rather loosely, standing mainly for 'conceptual meaning'. For
more precise designation of sense see section 2.1.2 "Distinguishing between sense and reference"

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 Collocative meaning is the meaning which a word acquires in the company of

words with which it is most usually associated. Words tend to collocate with certain words

only, (ibid.,17) For instance, the word addled collocates with eggs but not with butter and

the word rancid collocates with butter but not with eggs. A s other examples of collocation

may serve collective words such as flock of sheep, herd of cows, school of whales, etc.

(Palmer 1981: 77) Even though the expressions flock, herd, school share the meaning of

'group' or 'a number o f , flock is still not used in connection with cows or school with

sheep. O n the example of two adjectives pretty and handsome, Leech clearly

demonstratesthat even these two words have a shared sense 'good-looking' they differ by

the range of nouns with which they usually co-occur (e.g. flower is pretty, and car is

handsome, yet not vice versa). Yet ranges sometimes overlap: handsome women and

pretty woman are both possible expressions, however, they suggest a different kind of

attractiveness because of the words with which the adjectives handsome and pretty

usually collocate, (ibid., 17) 'Collocation' is discussed in greater detail in section 2.3.

Leech brings connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning reflected

meaning, collocative meaning under the heading of 'associative meaning'. H e arguesthat

in contrast to conceptual meaning these categories have more in common: they are

open-ended, variable, and they can be analysed only in terms of ranges. A l s o , unlike

associative meaning, conceptual meaning "seems to require the postulation of intricate

mental structures which are specific to language and to the human species", (ibid., 18)

The final category of meaning that Leech distinguishes is 'thematic' meaning. It

refers to what is communicated by the way in which a speaker or a writer organizes the

message in terms of ordering focus and emphasis. Thus, active sentences have different

thematic meaning than passive sentences, even though the conceptual meaning remains

the same. B y altering grammatical construction of a sentence, its thematic meaning

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changes, (ibid.,19-20) The following pair of Leech's example sentences nicely illustrates

the change of focus which leads to alteration of meaning:

(1) " M r s Bessie Smith donated the first prize."

(2) "The prize was donated by M r s Bessie Smith."

Although both sentences covey the same conceptual meaning, the communicative

value of sentence (1) is different from the sentence (2). Each of them answers a different

question. Sentence (1) answers the question: 'What did Bessie Smith donate?', whereas

the question for sentence (2) would sound rather ' W h o was the prize donated by?', (ibid.,

19) Nevertheless, it can be maintained that thematic meaning has more to do with

thematic relations which are part of sentence semantics. It might seem unsystematic to

include a category concerning a different branch of semantics together into one list with

types of meaning which primarily concern word semantics. O n the side, Leech also make

a note of two peripheral categories of meaning: 'intended' and 'interpreted' meaning. In

short, intended meaning is what speaker wants to express to the hearer and interpreted

meaning is what the hearer understands by the speaker's message, (ibid., 21-22)

John Lyons (1995) distinguishes two basic categories of meaning - 'descriptive' 2

(or 'propositional') and 'non-descriptive' ('non-propositional') meaning. Descriptive

meaning relates to descriptive statements, which can be either true or false based on the

'truth value' of the 'proposition' they express. Non-descriptive meaning, on the other
3

hand, is more heterogenous, less central and contains an expressive component. From 4

the category non-descriptive meaning, L y o n ' s highlights primarily expressive meaning

2
Alternatively, it is also called 'cognitive' and 'referential'. (Lyons 1995: 44)
3
Whether the 'proposition' is true or false. The terms 'proposition' and 'truth value' belong to the realm
of formal semantics, which treats linguistic meaning in terms of formal logic. As useful and
comprehensible guidelines to formal semantics provide Linguistic Meaning by Allan Keith (1986) or
Semantics by Kate Kearns (2011), which are accessible to readers even without a former knowledge of
the problematic.
4
More or less equivalent terms are 'affective', 'attitudinal' 'emotive'. (Lyons 1995: 44)

8
by which speakers express their beliefs, attitudes and emotions. (1995: 44) In natural

languages, expressive meaning is often conveyed via grammar (e.g. via its grammatical

moods). Although expressive meaning concerns mainly pragmatics and stylistics, Lyons

holds it to be an inherent part of sentence semantics as well, (ibid.)

In this section, several approaches to classifying types of meaning have been

introduced. In general, linguists argue that there are as many meanings as there are

communicative functions in a language. Therefore, in order to fully understand what the

meaning of a word, sentence or an utterance is, it is always necessary to consider them in

context. This universal notion has L u d w i g Wittgenstein neatly summarized in his famous

quote: "Don't look for the meaning, look for the use." (qtd in Lyons 1995: 43)

2.1.2 Distinguishing between sense and reference

In order to define the nature of word meaning in language, it is necessary to

differentiate between two principal semantic concepts, i.e. 'sense' and 'reference'.

'Reference' explores the relation between words and objects. It is concerned with

designating things, activities, properties, relationships and so on in the outside world of

experience by the means of words. A t this point, another useful distinction needs to be

made, and that is between 'denotation' and 'reference.' A number of semanticists (Lyons

(1995), Palmer (1981), Saeed (2010)) make a distinction in their terminology between the

terms 'denotation' and 'reference', where the former is used to describe the relationship

between the 'linguistic expressions' and the classes of entities in the real world, whereas
5

the latter term labels the activity of picking out the precise thing of reference in the world

in one specific context or on one particular occasion. In short, referring is what speakers

5
The term 'linguistic expression' puts forward that some objects or activities, etc., in the world often
cannot be referred to simply by a single word. Therefore, it is often necessary to use for these objects,
activities, whole sequences of words or, for instance, noun phrases. (Palmer 1981: 18)

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do while denoting is property of linguistic expression. (Saeed 2009: 23) Lobner defines

'reference' in simple words as "the technical term for using an expression for something"

(2002: 5). 'Referent' is then "the entity referred to by an expression" and 'denotation' of

a content word is a "category, or set, of all protentional referents" (ibid., 25). In other

words, an expression 'refers' to one particular object in the real world, but 'denotes' a

whole class of such objects. Lobner's definition of reference and denotation can be

compared with similar one by Palmer who mentions denotation as "being used to indicate

the class of persons, things, etc., generally represented by the expression" in contrast to

'reference' which stands for "the actual persons or things etc. being referred to by it in

any particular context" (1981: 18). Another difference between denotation and reference

is that denotation is invariant and utterance-independent: the meaning of the expression

is stable and does not depend on the occasion in which it is used, the relationship between

denotation and an object it denotes is stable, while reference is variant and

utterance-dependent, which means that the meaning of an expression w i l l differ according

to the situation in which it is used. (Lyons 1995: 79) To illustrate this with an example:

the word 'bed' always denotes the one and the same class of furniture, whereas the phrase

'my bed' or 'the bed I am sleeping i n ' w i l l have different 'referents' depending on the

occasion in which it is uttered. Nevertheless, it remains necessary to acknowledge that

some words may not refer at all. Those are so-called 'non-referring' expressions and they

include mostly the grammatical words (expressions like the, a, therefor, similarly, etc.,

refer to no object in the real world). (Saeed 2009: 26)

Having defined the terms 'denotation' and 'reference' and having distinguished

between the types of 'reference', it is now possible to explain how these concepts help

(or do not help) to define, where does 'meaning' come from. Palmer mentions one of the

oldest views, which can be found in the Plato's dialogue Cratylus. Plato's principal idea

10
is that a word in language 'stands for', 'refers' to or 'denotes' a real-world object. Plato

sees words as 'names' or 'labels' for objects or things. (1981: 17) W h i l e Palmer names

this theory the naming-view, other linguists have come up with a variety of names,

nevertheless, in essence, the views remain similar. Murphy (2010) and Lyons (1995) dub

this approach the 'Referential Theory'. Nevertheless, semanticists generally agree that

this theory is lacking. Palmer argues that the theory works well for proper nouns (John

Smith, Paris, Wednesday), which generally serve as names for objects. But in most cases,

the theory cannot be extended to other part of speech such as adjectives and verbs.

(1981: 17) A s Palmer puts it: "It is virtually impossible to identify what is 'named' by a

verb." (ibid., 18) He further claims that the theory does neither apply to grammatical

words or for abstract objectsthat have no referent in the real world, (ibid., 19)

Murphy arguesthat the Referential Theory does account for abstract words such

as love or democracy. "So, the word love points out to whatever love there is in the world,

regardless of the fact that it may be hard to see or touch." (2010: 35) However, Murphy

agrees with Palmer, that the Referential Theory is not satisfactory, when it comes to

non-existent entities, for which Murphy names Tooth Fairy, goblin and happy cucumber,

since although these words do not refer to anything in the real world, they are not

'meaningless', (ibid., 35-36) The other major problem lies within words which, although

having the same referent, are not to be treated as synonymous. The typical example is

Phosphorus and Hesperus - Latin names for the morning star and the evening star -

which both refer to the planet Venus. According to the Referential theory, they should be

treated as synonyms, although they have different meanings.

Thus, a more sophisticated view that relates words and entities is needed. The

modern solution of explaining the nature of 'word meaning' is to define the meaning of

a word in terms of the images in the speaker's or the hearer's mind.

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 Modern semanticists have adopted more complex system in which 'reference' is

only one dimension of 'meaning'. Another dimension is 'sense'. Murphy characterises

'sense' as "some abstract representation of what the referents of a word have in common,

in other words the qualities that something needs to have in order for us to apply a certain

label for it". (2010: 36) Similar definition o f ' sense' provides A l l a n Cruse when he writes

that 'sense' of a word is some kind of mental representation of the type of entity that the

word can be used to refer to. (2011: 46) In other words, 'sense' of a word is what the

speaker or the hearer imagine in their minds when they say or hear the word. According

to Cruse, 'sense' is constituted by 'concepts', which can be defined as mental constructs

"that stand in relation of correspondence to a coherent category of thing i n some world,

prototypically the real world, but potentially also imaginary, fictional, or virtual worlds".

(2011:53)

However, Curse's and Murphy's notion of'sense' differs from Lyons' (1981: 58),

who perceives 'sense' of an expression as "a set of 'sense relations' that hold between it
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and other expression". Y e t another approach to 'sense' as well as 'denotation' offers

Kearns (2011) in Semantics, in which she introduces a variety of concepts in formal

semantics.

2.1.3 Sense relations and lexical fields

The structuralist approach to semantics proposes that the meaning of words

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cannot be determined in isolation, rather it needs to be studied in terms of sense relations

that hold between it and other expressions (words) of the same language.

(Lobner2002: 128) Semantics distinguish between two types of relations that hold

6
For the definition of 'sense relations' see section 2.1.3 Sense relations and lexical fields.
7
The structuralist approach, widely known as structuralism, was first developed by a Swiss linguist
Ferdinand de Saussure (1957-1913). Saussure sees language as a complex system of signs (words) which
are interrelated by a complex network of relations and rules. (Lobner 2002: 127-132)

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between words: (1) paradigmatic relations and (2) syntagmatic relations. (Lyons (1995)

offers the terms 'substitutional' for paradigmatic and 'combinatorial' for syntagmatic.)

A s Murphy suggests, sense relations are an important notion because they help to explain

how the lexicon is structured in human minds. (2010: 109)

8

Palmer characterizes paradigmatic relations as "those into which a linguistic unit

enters through being contrasted or substitutable, in a particular environment, with other

similar units". (1981: 67) O n the same note, Murphy arguesthat "words in paradigmatic

relations belong to the same word class and share some characteristics in common"

(2010: 109). 'Paradigm' is then characterised as a set of words that display a certain

pattern. A paradigm may be morphological - including, for instance, tense forms of a

verb: drink/drank/drunk, or it can be semantic - concerning senses of words which share

some aspects but differ in others: like, for example, the colours in the following noun

phrase: a red/white/green/blue house (ibid.) Paradigmatically related words can be

usually substituted by each other in a sentence, (ibid.)

Linguists often disagree on how many paradigmatic relations are to be

distinguished. L i p k a recognizes four basic types of paradigmatic relation: (1)

'homonymy' and 'polysemy', (2) 'synonymy', (3) 'antonymy' and (4) 'hyponymy'.

(1992:135-136)

L i p k a defines 'homonymy' as a relationship between two words which are

phonologically and graphically identical, but their meanings are unrelated and differ. If

the meanings are related, one speaks of 'polysemy' or of multiple meanings, (ibid., 137)

To distinguish between homonymy and polysemy three factors need to be considered:

first, etymology, second, formal identity and distinctness (its graphic and phonological

8
The term lexicon is an overall expression for all meaningful words and expression in a language that can
be combined into sentences and other linguistic units. (Murphy 2010: 3-4) In other words, it is the
vocabulary of a language.

13
form) and third, close semantic relatedness (in other words, whether the senses of the

word are related). For example, ean 'organ of hearing' and ear2'head of corn' are

homonyms, because the etymology of these two words is different. Comparably, porti

'harbour' and port2 'fortified wine' are two senses of one polysemous word, because their

etymology can be traced to the Latin word portus. (ibid.) A s far as the formal relatedness

is concerned, the distinction between 'homophony' and 'homography' needs to be set

down. Words that are read or pronounced the same are called homophones: flower x flour

or, for instance, / (pronoun) x eye, sale x sail, etc. Words that are written the same but

pronounced differently are called homographs: read (present tense of the verb) x read

(past tense of the verb), or the words like bow 'weapon' vs. bow 'bend one's head or

body' or wind 'air' vs. wind 'twist in spirals', etc. Nevertheless, it needs to be maintained

that homophones and homographs are not often distinguished, rather they are frequently

introduced as homonyms in the wider sense of the term. Lastly, as it was already

suggested, for two words to be homonymous, their meaning must be unrelated as it is the

case of the word bah 'a flying mammal' x bati 'a specially shaped stick for hitting a ball

in cricket, ect.'. (ibid.)

A s a second sense relation, L i p k a (1992, 135-136) mentions synonymy, which can

be best defined as relatedness of meaning. Synonymy w i l l be discussed in a greater detail

in the following subchapter 2.2.

The third sense relationship L i p k a designates is antonymy, which can be broadly

defined as "oppositeness of meaning", (ibid.) It is a binary relationship, which means that

it holds between pairs of words, or to be precise, between pairs of word senses.

(Murphy 2010: 118) Antonymy is often perceived as opposite of synonymy (see 2.1),

although in fact, it can be argued that no true synonyms exist, whereas true antonyms are

common, regular and can be clearly defined. Murphy (2010: 119-121) divides antonyms

14
into three types: (1) 'contrary' 9
antonyms, (2) 'complementary' 10
antonyms, (3)

'converse' antonyms and (4) 'reversive opposites'. A s an instance of contrary antonyms,

Murphy names two pairs of adjectives: tall x short and old x young, in which "assertion

of one does entail the negation of the other, but the negation of one does not entail the

assertion of the other" (2010: 119). In other words, i f one is happy, one is not sad, yet

when one is not sad, it does not mean that one is happy. One can feel neutral - neither

happy nor sad. Therefore, contrary antonyms are considered scalar, which means that

they represent two opposite extremes on a scale, which can be somehow measured.

Complementary antonyms Murphy (ibid., 120) characterizes as those "for which the

assertion of one entails the negation of the other". O n an example words odd and even,

Murphy demonstratesthat when one of the two options is true (e.g. a number is odd), the

other option must necessarily be false (the number is not even, and vice versa). Murphy,

however, sets forth that not all adjectival anonyms fit neatly into the two categories, (ibid)

Words like honest/dishonest or dead/alive lie somewhere in the middle between gradable

and complementary antonymy. A person that is not honest does not have to be inevitably

dishonest either, and one may utter a meaningful sentence like: "he's more dead than

alive", even though dead and alive are generally ungradable. Such antonyms are then

called 'gradable complementaries'. (ibid.)

Another crucial point that Murphy mentions in relation to contrary and

complementary antonyms is that although they are usually discussed in terms of

adjectives, other parts of speech belong to these categories as well, for instance, the verbs

(or nouns) love x hate or the verbs stay x go. (ibid.) Converse antonyms "describe the

same relation or activity from different points of view and follow patterns like: i f X is p

9
Also called gradable antonyms. Some linguists (e.g. Lyons (1977) or Lobner (2002)), reserve the term
antonym for this particular type of contrary (gradable) antonymy (Murphy 2010: 120 and
Lobner 1992: 146)
10
also called contradictory antonyms (Murphy 2010: 120)

15
to Y , then Y is q to X " (If Bill is a parent to Madeline, Madeline is a child of Bill's).

(ibid.) A s other examples serve the verbs give x receive or the adverbs above x bellow.

Reversive opposites "involve undoing of some action: tie/untie,

construction/demolition", (ibid.) Since both converse antonyms and reversive opposites

involve some change of direction, they can be gathered under the general category of

'directional' antonyms, (ibid.) Lastly, a note should be made about various classifications

and differences in terminology. Different linguists present different approaches to

antonymy, and so, whereas Murphy divides antonyms into four categories, Lobner, for

example, sees antonyms as one of five distinguishable types opposites: (1) antonyms, (2)

directional opposites, (3) complementaries, (4) heteronyms and (5) converses.

(2002: 87-93) For more detailed information on other approaches to antonymy see Lobner

(ibid.) or Lyons (1995: 128-130).

The forth sense relationship is hyponymy. "Hyponymy (also hyperonymy ) both 11

refer to the relationship of semantic inclusion that holds between more general terms such

as bird and more specific one such as finch" (Geeraerts 2010: 82) In the case of

Geeraerts' example bird is so-called 'hyperonym' , which is the more general term, or
12

alternatively dubbed - the 'superordinate' term. The more specific term finch is then

so-called 'hyponym' or the 'subordinate' term. 'Co-hyponyms' are hyponyms on the

same level of the same hyperonym, in case of Geeraerts' example, words like robin,

swallow and finch would be the co-hyponyms of bird, because they all represent a kind

of bird. It needs to be maintained that hyponymy is a transitive relationship: " i f tit is a

hyponym of bird, and titmouse and titlark are hyponyms of tit, then titmouse and titlark

11
Hyperonymy (superordination) is the relationship between hyperonym with regard to the hyponym,
whereas hyponymy (subordination) works in the opposite direction, i.e. it is the relationship between
hyponym with regard to hyperonym. (Geeraerts 2010: 82)
12
Alternative accepted variant of the word is 'hypernym'. (Geeraerts 2010: 82)

16
are also hyponyms of bird'' (ibid.) Hyponyms and hyperonyms constitute together a

hierarchical structure known as 'taxonomy', (ibid.,83)

Apart from four basic paradigmatic relations that L i p k a mentions, several linguists

(e.g., Murphy (2010); Geeraerts (2010)) include also 'meronymy'. Meronymy is a

part-whole relation. Characteristic example of meronymy mentioned also by Geeraerts is

the relationship between human body and its parts: face is a part of body, nose is a part of

face, elbow is a part of an arm, etc. however, examples concerning different areas can be

found as well: keyboard is a part of a computer, a soldier is a part of an army, and so on.

(2010: 88) According to Lobner, the essential difference between hyponymy and

meronymy is that unlike the former, meronymy is not transitive {an eye is a part of face,

but face is not part of an eye) and the part is an essential component of the whole.

(2002: 96)

So far, the paradigmatic relations have been discussed. N o w , the second type of

semantic relations needs to be briefly mentioned. A s Murphy suggests, syntagmatic

relations hold between words within a phrase or a sentence. (2010: 108) Thus, words in

syntagmatic relations usually fall into different word classes, same as words of a sentence

fall into different word classes (e.g. birds (noun) +fly (verb)). It is true that syntagmatic

relations are mainly the concern of sentence semantics and grammar. However, it is

worthwhile to mention them here, while they reveal the tendencies of certain words to

occur in the company of other particular words. A s , for instance, the word blond usually

stands in a sentence next to the word hair rather than the word door. (Palmer 1981: 76)

The ability of a word to keep certain company of other words is called 'collocation' and

it is an inherent part of word meaning. Collocation w i l l be discussed into greater detail in

section 2.3.

17
 It needs to be maintained, however that this section does not provide an

exhaustive account of all semantic-relations that can be distinguished. It offers rather a

brief overview of only the few fundamental ones. For more comprehensive information

about semantic relations and their types see chapter 3 in Lyons (1995) or chapter 2 in

Geeraerts (2010).

Closely related to sense-relations is the concept of 'lexical fields'. Linguistic

expressions (such as words and phrases) tend to form groups, in which their meaning is

defined by the sense relations that exist between a linguistic expression and another

member of the group. Such a group is then called a 'lexical field'. Lobner mentions that

among the typical examples of lexical fields belong, for instance, "term for the days of

the week, for colours, for numbers, for pieces of furniture, or other kinds of things within

one superordinate category." (2002: 94)

The literature often quite differs in the definitions of lexical fields. L i p k a (1992)

distinguishes between a word-field and a lexical field, Palmer (1981) offers the term

semantic fields, while Curse (1986) speaks of lexical configurations. Lyons (1995)

differentiates between semantic fields and lexical fields. The purpose of this section is

merely to introduce the notion of lexical fields rather than offer thorough explanation of

the issue, Lobner's terminology has been used, because it is simple and straightforward.

However, part four "the Semantic field theory" of Lexicology: Critical Concepts edited

by P. Hanks (2008) may serve as a useful and more comprehensive guide to the complex

concept of lexical fields, which, among other things, summarizes the studies by Trier

(1934), the inventor of the field approach.

Lobner states four conditions that words need to fulfil in order to be organized

into a lexical field: "(1) the lexemes are of the same word class, (2) their meanings have

something in common, (3) they are interrelated by precisely definable meaning

18
relations , (4) the group is complete in terms of the relevant meaning relations."

(2002:94) Lobner's definition therefore suggests that lexical fields concern only

paradigmatic relations. Geerearts, on the other hand suggests that syntagmatic relations

are to be considered as well: he argues that "words may have specific combinatory

features which it would be natural to include in a field analysis." (2010: 57)

The most influential study in the history of lexical fields was done by German

structuralist semanticist Jost Trier (1932) and (1934) who was the first to formulate the

field approach. (Geeraerts 2010: 53) Trier investigated the transition in German

intellectual vocabulary (words denoting knowledge) from O l d H i g h German at around

1200 to the 14 century M i d d l e High German. In the 13 century, O l d H i g h German

th th

recognized three types of knowledge: wisheit ("general ability to occupy one's position

in society, [...], with appropriate knowledge and skills"), kunst (courtly skills, chivalry)

and list (craftsmen skills). Wisheit was the general term and indicated that "the distinct

spheres of the noble kunst and the c i v i l list are embedded in a common religious world

order." (ibid., 54-55). One century later, the words became members of a slightly altered

field; list was replaced by wizzen (technical skills), wisheit ceased to be the general term

and instead acquired the meaning of religious knowledge and kunst began to refer to arts

and science. Changes in the meaning of one lexeme can affect the meaning of other

lexemes to which it is related through the network of semantic relationships within the

field. More comprehensive study on lexical provides Lehrer (1974) in Semantic Fields

and Lexical Structure. Lexical fields are used in thesauri and they have application in a

contrastive analysis of languages. (Murphy; 2010: 125)

In this section, sense relations contrast to all other sense relations, antonymy was

dealt with in much greater detail. The reason for it is that antonyms of conceal and hide

13
sense-relations

19
are dealt with into more detail in section 3.1.2, since investigating the antonyms of

synonymous words belongs among the methods of testing synonymy (see 2.2.3). In the

following section, the semantic relation of synonymy w i l l be discussed in greater detail,

while it creates the focus of the thesis.

2.2 Synonymy

Synonymy is traditionally defined as "sameness" of meaning. A s Lobner puts it:

"two lexemes are synonymous i f they have the same meaning". (2002: 46) However, it

can be argued that two lexemes with wholly identical meaning are only rarely found in a

language, i f at all. Palmer claims that in natural language there are in fact no real

synonyms, "that no two words have exactly the same meaning". (1981: 91) It would seem

unlikely that two such elements would survive in a language. A s Murphy sensibly argues,

having to learn and remember two words with identical meaning, when only one is

sufficient is neither economical nor useful. Sooner or later one of the words acquires

specific meaning, since as a rule "having two words lead people to the assumption of a

principle of contrast - that different linguistic forms are associated with different

meanings, (in denotation, connotation or social meaning)" (2010: 113).

There are several ways in which possible synonyms can differ. Possible

synonyms can, for example, belong to different dialects or they can vary stylistically.

They can have different emotive value or their meanings can be restricted by words with

which they can collocate. In case of a loose sense of synonymy, meanings of words may

only overlap. (Palmer 1981: 89-91) Synonymy can therefore be best defined as

"relatedness" in meaning. The aim of this section is to introduce the notion of synonymy

as it was perceived by several prominent semanticists. A t the same time, this section also

20
seeks to account for distinct types of synonymy. Finally, it presents two methods of

testing synonymy, one of which w i l l be touched upon in the analytical part of this thesis.

2.2.1 Approaches to synonymy

Geeraerts defines synonymy as "a relation of semantic identity, either between

readings of words or between words." (2010: 84-85) Subsequently, he discusses two

perspectives on synonymy. The first perspective compares synonyms with their full range

of applications, while the second compares the words in their specific contexts as they

appear in concrete sentences. Geeraerts further adds that in both cases, synonymy can be

either 'partial' or 'complete'. In cases, when words are compared in the context in which

they appear, two words are synonymous i f they can be substituted for one another while

the meaning of the expression (sentence) stays unchanged. The substitution must work

mutually, in order to rule out hyponymy as the relation between the words. In the

following example, the verbs fined and penalized are interchangeable:

(1) Kim was fined for speeding.

(2) Kim was penalized for speeding.

However, Geeraerts points out that since penalization may take other forms than

paying a fine, (for instance, withdrawal of the driving licence) the words are only partially

synonymous. O n the other hand, the expressions film and picture are completely

synonymous in such context as Did you see the latest with Cate Blanchett? Partial

synonyms 14
are used in the same context may differ in register, connotation and dialects,

(ibid.)

Partial synonyms are discussed in more detail in the section 2.2.2 ("Types of synonyms")

21
 When synonyms are being considered on the word level, then total synonyms are

words, which are identical in the range of meanings and substitutable for one another in

all relevant contexts without changing the meaning of the sentence. Partial synonyms are

then substitutable in one or more of the contexts. For instance, film and picture are

synonymous in context in which they represent 'cinematographic representation of a

story' but not 'painted or drawn portrait' (ibid., 84-85). However, Geeraerts mentions that

the identification of synonymy is not always so simple. Problems arise especially when

idioms are collocations are concerned. A s an example, Geeraerts states that word dead in

the sense 'complete' appears in the collocation dead silence, however, dead cannot to be

used with the noun victory, meaning 'complete victory', (ibid.)

Peprnfk mentions that synonyms must always be members of the same word

category. (2006: 26-27) For instance, synonyms can be the verbs conceal and hide, or the

adjectives concealed and hidden or the nouns concealment and hiding. Peprnfk also states

that synonymy concerns only lexical meanings and not lexemes, (ibid.) That means that,

for instance difficult is synonymous only with hard 1

(in hard question, meaning

'demanding') but not with hard (meaning 'firm' as in hard body).

2

A l l a n introduces the formal approach to synonymy and offers the following

definition: " A is synonymous with B , symbolically A - | | ||-B, only i f when A is true, then

B is true, and vice versa. (It follows that i f A is false, then B is false, and vice versa.)"

(2001: 115) A l l a n illustrates the definition with the following example sentences: The

window is opened. ]\ \[ The window got opened, (ibid.) N o w , it is evidentthat not only

expression and words but even whole sentences can be synonymous.

So far, the discussion focused mainly on what synonymy is, but one important

question remains to be answered: W h y is synonymy so important? To this, Peprnfk

provides a satisfying answer, when he writes: "well-developed synonymy contributes to

22
greater notional precision as well as to stylistic variety, and last but not least it removes

the need for repetition of one and the same words i n a context." (2006: 27)

2.2.2 Types of synonyms

Murphy presents some of the ways, in which synonyms can differ. Firstly, he

distinguishes between 'absolute synonyms' and 'sense synonyms'. Absolute synonyms

are words that can be substituted in every context without the slightest change in meaning.

(2010: 110) However, as it has already been stated, absolute synonyms are very rare. The

only words that tend to be sometimes considered as absolute synonyms are technical

names for such objects as plants, animals or chemicals. Most of the synonyms are therefor

only sense synonyms - words that are synonymous only in one of their senses, (ibid.)

According to Murphy, another category of words with overlapping senses are

so-called 'near-synonyms'. Such words are interchangeable only in some contexts, (ibid.,

111), A s an example, Murphy names two pairs of words:fake x false and obtain x acquire.

Fake and false as well as obtain and acquire can be interchanged only in some of their

contexts, since they differ in their nuanced meanings, (ibid.)

Lastly, Murphy mentions 'variants', which are words that share the same

denotation, yet they differ in a dialect or a register to which they belong. They might also

be associated with different connotations. A s examples of variants may serve words such

as lavatory, John or powder room, which generally designate toilet facilities. Murphy

considers the words sense synonyms, since they stand for the same object, however, they

differ in connotations, register, dialect and affect, (ibid., 112)

Like Geeraerts, Peprnik distinguishes between two types of synonymy: 'absolute'

and 'partial'. Absolute synonymy occurs when denotation, connotation and distribution

of words are identical, which however, hardly ever happens. (2006: 28-32) Nevertheless,

23
Peprnik mentions some examples that are worth considering as possible candidates. These

are: kind and sort, noun and substantive, spelling and orthography, (ibid.) However, even

in case of these words it remains debatable whether they are indeed interchangeable in all

contexts or not.

Partial synonyms Peprnik divides into two groups: 'notational' synonyms and

'stylistic' synonyms. Notational synonyms differ in a shade of meaning. Examples are

share and portion or: glasshouse and greenhouse. Stylistic synonyms are based on stylistic

differences: one of the synonyms may be, for instance, more poetic or archaic or both in

contrast to the other, (ibid.)

Cruse asserts the notion that some synonyms seem more synonymous than others.

(1986: 267) For this notion, he devises a scale of synonymy, in which absolute synonymy

on one side of the scale and non-synonymy on the other and with propositional

synonymy 15
somewhere between these two endpoints. (For more details see chapter 12

in Cruse (1986))

This section introduced some of the types of synonyms that can be distinguished.

The following section introduces two methods by which synonymy can be tested.

2.2.3 Methods for testing synonymy

Linguists have come up with a number of methods for examining whether two

words are synonymous or not. One of the methods is substitution. (Murphy calls this

method the substitutability-test. (2010: 110)) Murphy demonstrates the method on three

15
Cruse defines propositional synonymy in the following way: " X is a propositional synonym of Y if (i)
X and Y are syntactically identical, and (ii) any grammatical declarative sentence S containing X has
equivalent truth conditions to another sentence S, which is identical to S except that X is replaced by V."
In other words, two words are propositional synonyms if they can be interchanged in a sentence and the
meaning of the sentence does not change. (1986: 88)

24
words with related senses: human, person and man. First, he compares the nouns human

and person:

(1) A person is standing beside me.

(2) A human is standing beside me.

The sentences are synonymous, they have the same truth value and the express

the same proposition therefor the two sentences are synonymous. (2010: 110) Murphy

then compares the nouns person and man by comparing sentence (1) with the sentence:

(3) A man is standing beside me.

B y comparing sentence (1) and (3) it can be stated that the noun man and person

are not synonymous, because among persons count also women and children, (ibid.) Since

the focus of the thesis present the verbs conceal and hide, it might be worth to consider,

whether they would pass the substitution test. In the sentence (4) conceal and hide are

interchangeable, and the meaning does not change. However, in (5) and (6) the

substitution does not work.

(4) She managed to conceal/hide her feelings from her friends.

(5) You should not conceal/hide behind excuses.

(6) She is concealing/hiding in her room.

The substitutional test reveals that conceal and hide are not total synonyms.

Although they can be interchanged in the contexts, in which they mean 'to keep sth

secret', it seems that conceal cannot substitute hide in contexts, in which is hide used

intransitively (the intransitive use of conceal is further discussed in the dictionary analysis

in section 3.1.1).

The other method lies in investigation of antonyms or 'opposites' of the

synonymous words. Palmer (1981: 92) argues that i f two words appear to have the same

25
antonyms, they are probably synonymous. He easily illustrates this notion on example of

two synonymous adjectives: deep and profound. He claims that while the adjective

superficial can be considered an opposite of both words, shallow, on the other hand,

cannot be contrasted with profound and may therefore in most cases serve only as the

opposite of deep. A s a result, deep and profound are not interchangeable in all context,

but in those, in which they can be substituted for one another, their mutual antonym is

superficial, (ibid.)

2.3 Collocation (A word in context)

In the actual language use, words are never treated as separate units of meaning.

Instead, all words are perceived as mutually related by whole sets of relationships. This

subchapter seeks to explain how context of a word can influence its meaning. A s Palmer

puts it: "[...] by looking at the linguistic context of words we can often distinguish

between different meanings". (1981: 76) More concretely, the section deals with the

notion of 'collocations', which can be characterised as groups of two or more words that

are used frequently together. They can reveal valuable information about the nature of

words, which is especially helpful when it comes to distinguishing between synonyms,

(ibid.) 'Collocations' are nicely introduced by Firth's famous quote: " Y o u shall know a

word by the company it keeps." (Firth 1957b: 11 in Geeraerts 2010: 59)

Structure of this section is the following: first, several definitions of 'collocation'

are provided and then follows a section on 'collocational restrictions'. Lastly, two English

language corpora, which are used as the tools for examining collocational behaviour of

hide and conceal in the analytical part, are briefly introduced.

26
2.3.1 Defining 'collocations'

Murphy defines collocation as "particularly frequent word combinations" that is,

words which often go with other words, for instance, stark goes with naked but not nude

and as the typical antonym of alive is dead and not so much expired. (2010: 8-10)

Cruse uses the term 'collocation' to refer to "sequences of lexical items which

habitually co-occur, but which are nonetheless fully transparent in the sense that each

lexical constituent is also a lexical constituent." (1986: 40) A s examples of collocations

he randomly chooses the words for weather: fine weather, torrential rain, light drizzle

and heavy winds. Cruse mentions that between 'collocations' exist a kind of semantic

cohesion and that "the constituent elements are to varying degrees, mutually selective"

(ibid.). He also mentions "that each constituent produces a recurrent semantic contrast",

which means that the opposite of heavy smoker is light smoker, since the opposite of

heavy is light, (ibid.)

In relation to 'collocation', it is wort to mention one of the methods, by which

collocation behaviour of words can be studied. Dirk Geeraerts in Theories of Lexical

Semantics (2010), section 4.2.3. discusses distributional corpus analysis . In terms of the
16

section, he borrows Stubs broad definition of 'collocation' as "a lexical relation between

two or more words which have a tendency to co-occur within a few words of each other

in running text" (Stubs 2002:24 in Geeraerts 2010: 170) Collocation and its vital role in

the field of corpus semantics is discussed in great detail in Words and Phrases: Corpus

Studies of Lexical Semantics by Michael Stubbs (2001).

16
Distributional corpus analysis examines the syntagmatic relations in which words occurs in large text
corpora. It considers the actual words in contexts of the target words, which reveal more about the target
words' properties. (Geeraerts; 2010: 169)

27
2.3.2 Collocational restrictions

Palmer (1981:76) argues that "although collocation is largely determined by

meaning, it is sometimes idiosyncratic and cannot easily be predicted in terms of meaning

of the associated words". H e mentions that the colour blond occurs with hair, but never

with door or dress, even i f these objects were the exactly same colour of the blond hair.

A s another example serve collective words such as flock of sheep, herd of cows, school

of whales or pride of lions. Palmer (1981: 78) claims that unlike i n the case of other

restricted collocations, which can be semantically accounted for by assigning a particular

meaning to the individual words, no such explanation applies for collective words, since

the only difference between herd and flock lies in the fact that the former collocates with

cows and the latter with sheep, (ibid.) "Some words may have more specific meaning i n

a particular collocation."

Cruse (2011: 182-183) similarly uses the term 'co-occurence preferences', which

he describes as "contraints on the normal collocates o f a word". H e illustrates this, with

the following example: although eyes can collocate with both the colours green and red

in "Mary's eyes are green/red\ it is misleading to assume that eyes can be equally

modified by green as well as red, since the colours refer to different parts of eyes, which

display different range o f normal colouring: it is normal for iris to be green but not red

and, conversly, sclera can usually become red but not green. Equally, the sentence "Mary

is beautiful dancer" can suggest either that Mary dances beautifully or that Mary is a

beautiful woman and a dancer and beautifully fits both the senses. Whereas in the sentence

Mary is a beautifull murderess can hardly mean that she murders beautifully, (ibid.)

Palmer (1981: 79) further distinguishes three types of collocational restrictions.

"First, some are based wholly on the meaning o f the item as i n the unlikely green cow.

Secondly, some are based on 'range' - a word may be used with a whole set of words that

28
share some semantic features have some semantic features in common, (rhododendron

died but not passed away, pretty typically does not collocate with males (pretty boy) but

females)" Cruse (2011: 184) confirms this notion, when he writes that "Classically,

selection restrictions were stated in the form of semantic categories to which lexical

partners had to belong". Collocational restriction of the verb drink requires that its object

is liquid. Thus, one can say "John drank the milk" and " M a r y drank the beer" since milk

and beer share the semantic feature of liquidity, but not "John drank the bread" nor " M a r y

drunk her wedding ring", which violate this restriction, (ibid.)

Lyons (1995: 62) fittingly defines 'collocational range' as "set of contexts in

which [an expression] can occur". H e sets forth that even synonyms, which are said to

share their meanings, do not necessity have to have the same 'collocational ranges'. H e

illustrates this notion on the example of the synonymous adjectives big and large. In the

expression big house, it is possible to substitute the adjective big by large and the noun

phrase large house is still suitable. Whereas, big cannot be substituted by large in the

phrase "she made a big mistake", since the collocation 'large mistake' is unacceptable.

Thirdly, some restrictions are collocational in the strictest sense (addled eggs and

brains). (Palmer 1981: 78)

L i p k a in Semantic Structure and Word-Formation (1972: 48-51) summarizes and

comments on yet other approaches to 'collocational restrictions' by Lyons, Halliday,

Greenbaum, Mitchell and others. It is worth mentioning at least Mitchell's differentiation

between 'collocation' and 'colligation'. According to Mitchell (1958: 103 in L i p k a

1972: 74), the term 'colligation' is used for syntagmatic relations which are of

grammatical nature. Thus, turn off in he turned off the lights is 'colligation' and not

'collocation', since the relationship between the words is purely grammatical.

29
 The following section introduces two English language corpora, which are in the

analytical part used as the primary tools for the collocational analysis of the verbs conceal

and hide.

2.3.3 British National Corpus and Contemporary Corpus of American English

"The British National Corpus ( B N C ) is a 100-million-word collection of samples

of written and spoken language from a wide range of sources, designed to represent a

wide cross-section of British English from the later part of the 20th century, both spoken

and written." ("What is the B N C ? " ; B N C ) 1 7

The corpus consists of a written part and a

spoken part. The former adds up to 90% of the corpus size and encompasses, for instance,

samples of texts from national and regional newspaper, specialist journals and

periodicals, books both academic and fiction, published as well as unpublished letters,

essays and many more. Remaining 10% of the corpora size consists of orthographic

transcriptions of spoken language in a range of different contexts, (ibid.)

"The Corpus of Contemporary American English ( C O C A ) is the largest freely-

available corpus of English, and the only large and balanced corpus of American English.

[...] The corpus contains more than 560 million words of text (20 million words each

year 1990-2017) and it is equally divided among spoken, fiction, popular magazines,

newspapers, and academic texts." ( C O C A ; H E L P ) 1 8

Each year the corpus is enlarged by

20 million words. C O C A successfully holds its status of being contemporary, since the

last update occurred in December 2017.

More information about C O C A and its use as a tool for a corpus analysis can be

found in the fairly recent Corpus Methods for Semantics by G l y n n and Robinson (2014).

17
http://www. natcorp. ox. ac.uk/corpus/
18
https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/

30
Glynn writes that one of the greatest advantages of C O C A is its free availability and its

enormous size, which together with sampling scheme leads to more reliable and valid

observations of even quite rare linguistic phenomena. (2014: 154) This might one of the

reason, why today C O C A belongs to the most widely used corpora.

31
3 Analytical part

In this part of the thesis, the actual analysis of the pair of synonymous verbs

conceal and hide is provided. The analytical part consists of two main chapters:

"Dictionary analysis" and "Corpus analysis". The results are commented on in the

summary section.

The dictionary analysis consists of three parts. First, the definitions of the verbs,

as they are found in various dictionaries of the English language, are given and compared.

The focus lies on revealing various senses of the verbs, nuances of meaning, typical

collocations, as well as information about frequency or typical registers, in which the

verbs appear. In the next section, conceal and hide are examined in selected thesauri of

the English language and various dictionaries of synonyms. The aim is to examine the

relationships that hold between synonymous lexemes. The last section of the dictionary

analysis illustrates one of the methods of testing synonymy. The test lies in investigating

the antonyms of the synonymous words as they appear in dictionaries of the English

language.

After that, the corpus analysis follows. Its goal is to examine the real-life usage of

the verbs with the use of two substantial corpora of the English language - the British

National Corpus and the Contemporary Corpus of American English. The corpus analysis

is divided into four sections. The first examines general frequencies of the verbs. The

second focuses on text-types and register in which the verbs occur in the corpora. The

third section looks at the objects, which collocate both with conceal and hide, as well as

objects that tend to occur in the environment of just one of the verbs. The last section of

the corpus analysis seeks to investigate the modifiers of hide and conceal, which collocate

either with both or only just one of the verbs.

32
 The results of the analytical part of the thesis are then summarised and briefly

commented on in the summary.

33
3.1 Dictionary analysis

3.1.1 Dictionaries of the English language

This chapter seeks to examine the conceptual meaning of the verbs conceal and

hide. For this purpose, several dictionaries of the English language were consulted.

Quoted entries provide important definitions of meanings of the verbs which allows us to

distinguish between various senses of the synonymous verbs, as well as it occasionally

offers some information about their frequencies or common collocations. The verbs in

this section are treated separately. The entries are usually quoted in full, but occasionally,

an irrelevant information is omitted. The parts that are less relevant to the analysis, but

still worth a mention, are then put into smaller print. The entries are commented on only

when any new and valuable information about the verbs needs to be mentioned. The

results of the analysis are summarized in a table at the end of the section.

Following is the list of the consulted dictionaries:

Cambridge International Dictionary of English ( C I D E ; 1995),

Collins Cobuild English Dictionary ( C C E D ; 1995),

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ( L D C E ; 1978),

Oxford English Dictionary ( O E D ; online),

The New Oxford Dictionary of English ( N O D E ; 1998),

New Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language ( N W D T E L ; 1991),

The Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary ( R H W U D ; 2001).

3.1.1.1 Conceal in the consulted dictionaries

The New Oxford Dictionary of English ( N O D E : 379)

34
conceal • verb [with obj.] not allow to be seen: hide: a line of sand dunes concealed the distant
see | [as adj. concealed] he pressed a concealed button.
• keep something secret; prevent something from being known or noticed: love that they had
concealed from others.
- DERIVATIVES concealment noun
- ORIGIN Middle English: from Old French conceler, from Latin concelare,
from -con 'completely' + celare 'hide'

The first of the quoted dictionary entries is taken from N O D E . The entry is quite

brief, since it lists only two senses of conceal. The first sense, 'not allow to be seen', is

equalled with 'hide'. The second sense of the verb is to 'keep something secret' or in

other words 'prevent something from being known or noticed'. It also suggests that the

verb can be transitive, since it mostly requires an object. The grammatical construction

conceal sth from sb also deserves a mention. N O D E also mentions two words derived

from the verb: namely the adjective concealed and the noun concealment. The dictionary

further brings information about the etymology of the verb: conceal appeared first in the

Middle English. It was borrowed from O l d French conceler, which came to French from

Latin. It was formed by the process of affixation - prefix -con, meaning 'completely',

joined with celare, Latin word for 'hide'.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ( L D C E : 275)

con*ceal /kansi:!/ v [T] formal 1 to hide something carefully: Customs officers found the
cannabis concealed inside the case. \ The path was concealed by long grass. 2 to hide your real
feelings or the truth: conceal sth from sb Don't try to conceal anything from me. —
concealment n [U]

The definition taken from L D C E defines two senses of conceal. The sense 'to

hide something carefully' highlights the caution with which the 'hiding' of something is

done as well as it suggests that the object is consequently fully concealed, so that no part

can be seen or noticed. It excludes the possibility that something can be concealed, for

instance, absent-mindedly or by mistake. The example "The path was concealed by long

grass" shows that conceal may be used in passive voice and its subject may be inanimate.

35
L D C E mentions conceal as both transitive and ditransitive (^conceal sth from sb").

Conceal in the sense 'keep secret' collocates with "real feelings" or "the truth", which

confirms also the corpus analysis in 3.2.3. L D C E . The entry further states that conceal

appears informal register.

Cambridge International Dictionary of English ( C I D E : 279)

con*ceal (obj) /kan'siil/ v to prevent (something) from being seen or known about; to hide
(something) • The entrance to the house is concealed behind high gates. [T] / tried to conceal
my surprise when she said she was only 22. [T] • An accusation has been made that the police
concealed vital evidence. [T] • Is there something you're concealing from me? [T] • He
managed to conceal from his parents where he was going. [+wh- word]

In comparison with entries that have been quoted so far, C I D E provides a rather

general definition of conceal, since it puts together the senses which are stated separately

in N O D E and L D C E . However, it mentions new grammatical feature of the verb: it can

be combined with wh- clauses, as it is suggested in the quoted example: "He managed to

conceal from his parents where he was going". Among the examples occurs the

collocation conceal one's surprise, which is again discussed in the analytical part, section

3.2.3 ("Collocation: objects"), since it appears relatively frequently in both consulted

corpora.

Collins Cobuild English Dictionary ( C C E D : 331)

conceal /kansi:l/ conceals, concealing, concealed • •

1 If you conceal something, you cover it or hide it carefully. Frances decided to conceal the
machine behind a hinged panel... Five people were arrestedfor carrying concealed weapons.
VERB, Vn,V-ed
2 If you conceal a piece of information or a feeling you do not let other people know about it.
Robert could not conceal his relief... She knew at once that he was concealing something from
her.
V E R B , ^reveal, V n, V n from n
3 If something conceals something else, it covers it and prevents it from being seen. ... a pair of
carved Indian doors which conceal a built-in cupboard... The hat concealed her hair.
VERB, V n

36
 A s the first of the quoted dictionaries, C C E D provides other verb forms of

conceal, which shows that the verb is regular. The entry states three senses of conceal. It

matches reveal as the antonym of conceal used i n sense 2 ( ' i f you conceal a piece of

information or a feeling you do not let other people know about it'). Reveal, however, can

be used as an antonym of conceal in other senses as well, as is becomes clear in section

3.1.2. C C E D also offers some information about the frequency with which the verb

appears in the language.

Words in C C E D are divided into five frequency bands, which are signified by

black "diamonds". The most frequent words are marked by five "diamonds" and represent

the very core of the English language. Slightly less frequent words have four "diamonds",

words that are used even less often have three and so on. Infrequent or rare words are

marked by no "diamond". ( C C E D ; 1995: xiii) Conceal belongs to the band marked by

two "diamonds", which suggests that although it is not in the very core of the vocabulary,

it is still an essential part of English. For comparison, apart from conceal, among

"two-diamond" words belong: "accuracy", "duration", "miserable", "puzzle" and "rope",

(ibid.)

Oxford English Dictionary ( O E D ; online)

conceal, v Brit, /kan'sid/, U.S. /kan'sil/

Frequency (in current use): • • • • • • o o

Origin: Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly a borrowing from
Latin. Etymons: French conceler; Latin conceldre.
Etymology: < (i) Anglo-Norman conceler, conceller, conseiler, conseler, cunceler to keep
(something) secret, to refrain from disclosing or divulging (something) (first third of the 13th
cent, or earlier as cunceler), to hide (a person or thing) (al380 or earlier), and its etymon (ii)
classical Latin concelare (in post-classical Latin also conselare) to keep secret (2nd
cent. A.D. in Aulus Gellius) < con- CON- prefix + celare to hide (see CELE v.).

1. trans.
a. To keep (information, intentions, feelings, etc.) from the knowledge of others; to keep
secret from (formerly also f to) others; to refrain from disclosing or divulging.
[...]

37
 1859 tr. G. Favey Short Stories from Hist. Switzerland v. 148 D'Eschembach spent thirty-
five long years concealed as a shepherd in a remote corner of Wurtemberg.
1918 Atlantic Monthly Nov. 590/2 So, concealed as a movement to conserve shipping, the
coal-shortage of western Europe came bodily to America.
2011 J. Endredy Lightning in my Blood i. 24 The stairs to enter it were
cleverly concealed as a formation of vines circling upward.
2.
a. trans. To hide (a person or thing); to put or keep out of sight or notice. Also: to prevent from
being visible.
[•••]
1921 C. Kingston Remarkable Rogues xix. 268 He had the canvas concealed in the false
bottom of a trunk and taken to America.
1994 Amer. Spectator Nov. 40/2 The behavior is typical of an attempt to conceal a weapon.
2012 Daily Tel. 20 July 30/2 I'm very conscious of my stomach, so I tend to conceal my
waist.
f b. intr. To hide oneself. Obs. rare.
[...]
1591 ( • ?al425) Three Kings (Huntington) in R. M . Lumiansky & D. M i l l Chester Myst.
Cycle (1974) I. 158 Lord God. That dye would for mankyndes heale, thow come to us and
not conceale, but bee our counselour.
c. trans. To hide (the flavour, taste, smell, etc.) of something; to make imperceptible.
[•••]
1882 R. L . Stevenson New Arabian Nights II. 51 The noises of the storm
effectually concealed all others.
1912 E. J. Banks Bismya xix. 284 We gathered some of the [licorice] roots and placed them
in a jug of water to flavour it, or rather to conceal the flavour which it already had.
2008 S. Faulks Devil may Care vi. 59 No amount of expensive scents had quite concealed a
rancid under-smell of socks.
3. intr. To keep something from the knowledge or observation of others; to practice
concealment.
[•••]
1860 R. W. Emerson Wealth in Conduct of Life (London ed.) 85 They who hoard
and conceal.
1907 Jrnl. Amer. Med. Assoc. 23 Feb. 710/1 The employment of unusual terms for a public
not familiar with such terms evidences a desire to concealand to deceive.
2009 K. R. Jamison Nothing was Same 173 M y new dresses were meant to conceal, to
inhibit the responses of others.

O E D provide a detailed account of all the senses of conceal and the nuances

between them. It mentions three main senses of conceal, some of which are further split

into sub-senses marked by small letters (a, b, etc.) O E D is the only of the quoted

dictionaries that presents conceal also as an intransitive verb, used in the sense of 'to hide

oneself as in "thow come to us and not conceale", this use, however, is now rare and

obsolete, which suggests the example itself. Conceal can further be used intransitively in

the sense 'to keep something from the knowledge or observation of others', which

illustrates the example " M y new dresses were meant to conceal, [... ]", meaning they were

38
designed not reveal much of the naked human skin. O E D also states that conceal can be

used in the sense 'to hide (the flavour, taste, smell, etc.) of something' or 'to make

imperceptible' as in the sentence: "No amount of expensive scents had quite concealed a

rancid under-smell of socks.".

In O E D (online), words are divided into eight bands of frequency, which are

represented by a line of corresponding number of black dots in the head of the entry.

Band 8 contains the most frequent words, and conversely, Band 1 contains words with a

very low frequency. Obsolete words do not belong to any frequency band. Conceal fits

into frequency Band 6, which "contains words which occur between 10 and 100 times per

million words in typical modern English usage, including a wide range of descriptive

vocabulary." (Key to frequency, O E D (online)) 19

The dictionary further provides information about the origins of conceal. The verb

comes from multiple origins. According to the O E D , it was borrowed partly from French

and partly from Latin. In English, it first appeared in the first third of the 13 century, in
th

the form of Anglo-Norman verb conceler (or in its related forms), which meant 'keep

(something) secret, to refrain from disclosing or divulging (something)'.

The Random Webster's Unabridged Dictionary ( R H W U D : 422)

con*ceal (ksn seT), v.t. 1. to hide; withdraw or remove from observation; cover or keep from
sight: He concealed the gun under his coat. 2. To keep secret: to prevent or avoid disclosing or
divulging: to conceal one's identity by using a false name. [1275-1325; M E conselen, concelen
< A F conceler < L concelare, equviv. To con- C O N - + celare to hide [...]] — con-ceal'a-ble, adj.
— con-ceal'a-birHy, n. — con-ceal'ed-ly, adv. — con-ceal'ed-ness, n.—con-ceal'er, n —Syn. 1. See
hide .
1

R H W U D does not provide much additional information about conceal, however,

it mentions the collocation conceal a gun. This collocation is discussed in more detail in

https://public.oed.com/about/

39
section 3.2.3. The dictionary further suggests that one conceals his or her identity by using

a false name. Since the collocation appears in the B N C and C O C A , this statement is again

examined in 3.2.3. R H W U D also states that conceal first appears in Middle English in

the form conselen or concelen between the years 1275-1325, which is about half a century

later than it is stated in O E D .

New Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language ( N W D T E L : 202)

con«ceal (kansi:!) v.t. to hide | to keep secrete
con«céal«ment n. [O.F. conceler]

3.1.1.2 Hide in the consulted dictionaries

The New Oxford Dictionary of English ( N O D E : 862)

hide verb (past hid; past participle hidden) [with obj.] put or keep out of sight; conceal from
1

view or notice of others: he hid the money in the house \ they swept up the pieces and hid them
away.
• (of a thing) prevent (someone or something) from being seen: clouds rolled up and hid the
moon. • keep secret or unknown: Herbert could hardly hide his dislike. • [no obj.] conceal
oneself: Juliet's first instinct was to hide under the blankets \ he had a little money and could
hide out until the end of the month. • [no obj.] (hide behind)
use (someone or something) to protect oneself from criticism or punishment, especially in a way
considered cowardly or unethical: companies and manufacturers with poor security can hide
behind the law.
• noun Brit. A camouflaged shelter used to get a close view of wildlife.
- PHRASES hide one's head cover up one's face or keep out of sight, especially from shame, hide one's light
under a bushel keep quiet about one's talents or accomplishments, [ORIGIN: with biblical allusion to Matt.
15.]
- DERIVATES: hider noun.
- ORIGIN: Old English hydan, of West Germanic origin.

The entry in N O D E shows that, unlike conceal, hide is an irregular verb. The

dictionary lists five senses of the verb. In case of the first sense 'put or keep out of sight;

conceal from view or notice of others', hide uses requires an object. Interestingly, it uses

the verb conceal as part of the definition, which suggests that in the first sense, the verbs

are very close in meaning. However, in one of the examples, hide and the adverb away

together form the phrasal verb hide away, whereas conceal does not. Sense 2 shows that

subjects of hide can be inanimate objects, such as "clouds". Note to sense 4 'conceal

40
oneself implies that hide can also be used intransitively verb. In that aspect hide differs

from conceal, which, as it stands in dictionaries, usually has a subject. Sense 4 of hide

presents the phrases: hide under sth and hide out ('to go into or be in hiding'). Hide behind

('to protect oneself from criticism or punishment, especially in a way considered

cowardly or unethical') is again used intransitively as in "hide behind the law". However,

it must be maintained that hide behind used in that sense is not synonymous with conceal.

On the side, the entry mentions two phrases in which hide occurs: "hide one's head" and

"hide one's light under the bushel". In these phrases hide is not interchangeable with

conceal.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ( L D C E : 671)

hide /haid/ v past tense hid past participle hidden /'hidn/ 1 [T] to deliberately put or keep
1

something in a place where it cannot be easily seen or found: My girlfriend keeps hiding my
cigarettes. | hide sth from sb The bushes hid Dave 's bike completelyfrom the passers-by. | keep
sth hidden Confidential documents are kept hidden in a secret vault. | hide sth in/under/behind
ect She hides his letter under her pillow. 2 [I] to go or stay in a place where you hope no one
will find you: Quick - she's coming we'd better hide! | [+ under/behind/in ect] Harry hid under
the bed until they have gone. | hide from Kylie tried to hide from the stranger. | 3 [T] to keep
someone in a place where other people will not find them: hide sb from an attempt to hide her
children from their violent father 4 [T] to not show your feeling to people: Paul struggled to
hide his disappointment at not getting the job. 5 [T] to deliberately not tell people facts or
information: He took off his ring to hide the fact that he was married. | hide sth from Don't try
to hide anything from me. 6 have nothing to hide; to be willing to tell people about everything you
have done, because you have done nothing dishonest, illegal or immoral: The company claimed that the
deal was legal and that they had nothing to hide. 7 hide your light under a bushel to not tell anyone
that you are very good at something

In comparison with the L D C E entry for conceal, the entry for hide is significantly

longer. It lists seven very specific senses of the word. Sense 1 'to deliberately put or keep

something in a place where it cannot be easily seen or found' emphasizes that one hides

something carefully and intentionally. Hide can be used as ditransitive verb in the phrase

hide sth form sb. It is also used in past participle in the phrase keep sth hidden, which

means 'put something out of sight for a period of time' and in "hide sth in/under/behind"

as in "Harry hid under the bed until they have gone". In N O D E and some of the following

41
dictionaries are the senses 4 and 5 are put together in the more general sense 'keep secret'.

Senses 6 and 7 explain some unique phrases in which hide occurs. Again, in these senses

hide cannot be substituted with conceal.

Cambridge International Dictionary of English ( C I D E : 666)

hide (obj) |OUT OF VIEW| /haid/ v past simple hid /hid/, past part hidden /'hid- n/ to put (something
3

or someone) in a place where they cannot be seen or found, or to put (yourself) somewhere you
cannot be seen or found • She used to hide her diary under her pillow. [T] • A kilo of heroin was
found hidden inside the lining of the suitcase.
[T] • They hid the escaped prisoner in their barn. [T] • Rosie wants you to go and look for her
- she's hiding somewhere upstairs. [I] • / like wearing sunglasses - I feel I can hide behind
them. [I] 'To hide something is also to prevent it from being seen: He tries to hide his bald
patch by sweeping his hair over to one side. [T] • If you hide an emotion, you do not show it:
The president made no attempt to hide his annoyance at the newspaper's allegations. [T] • If
you hide an information from someone, you do not let that person to know it: Ifeel sure there's
something about her past that she is trying to hide from me. [T] • Hide-and-seek is a children's
play in which a group of children hide in secret places and one child, who all this time has had their eyes
closed and has been counting up to a particular number, has got to go to look for the other children. •
(infml) A hidey-hole or hidy-hole is a small place for hiding things in. • (saying) 'Don't hide your light
under a bushel' means do not keep your good qualities and abilities secret from other people. • "The
Hidden Persuaders" (title of a book on advertising by Vance Packard, 1957)

CTDE mentions no new sense of hide, yet it mentions four specific contexts in

which the word hide occurs: a children's play hide-and-seek, a small hiding place for

things hidey-hole/hidy-hole, the saying don't hide your light under the bushel and a book

title The Hidden Persuaders. However, since hide does not share these senses with

conceal, they are written in smaller print, for they are less relevant to the analysis. The

entry in C I D E reveals that hide is, unlike conceal, frequently used transitively as well as

intransitively. Essential information is that one can hide feelings and information from

someone else. The entry mentions the collocation hide one's annoyance which appears

in the corpora analysis in 3.2.3.

Collins Cobuild English Dictionary ( C C E D : 792)

hide /haid/ hides, hiding, hid, hidden • • •

1 If you hide something or someone, you put them in a place where they cannot easily be seen
or found. He hid his bicycle in the hawthorn hedge... They could see that I was terrified, and
hid me until the coast was clear.
V E R B , =conceal, V n

42
 2 If you hide or if you hide yourself, you go somewhere where you cannot easily be seen or
found. At their approach the little boy scurried and hid... They hid themselves behind a tree.
V E R B , V , pron-relf
3 If you hide or if you hide yourself, you press your face against something or cover your face
with something, so that people cannot see it. She hid her face under the collar of his jacket and
she started to cry... He hid his face in his hands, again, lost in his own thoughts.
VERB, V n
4 If you hide what you feel or know, you keep it a secret, so that no one knows about it. Lee
tried to hide his excitement... I have absolutely nothing to hide, I have done nothing wrong...
Alison was not the sort of person to hide anything from her dad.
VERB, V n
5 If something hides an object, it covers it and prevents it from being seen. The man's
moustache hid his lip completely... The compound was hidden by trees and shrubs.
VERB, V n
[•••]

C C E D ranks hide among "three-diamond" words which suggests that it is

somewhat more frequent than conceal. C C E D distinguishes five senses of hide. The

distinctions, however, are very subtle. Sense 1 the dictionary states the verb conceal as a

synonym to hide, which again confirms that the verbs are often interchangeable,

especially in the sense 'to put something or someone in a place where they cannot easily

be seen or found'. Senses 2 and 3 are similar. Yet in sense 2 hide is used as a reflexive.

Another difference lies in the fact that whereas in sense 2, people leave where they are

and go somewhere where they cannot be seen or discovered, in sense 3 they stay and only

cover their faces so that others cannot see it and thus discover their emotions or identity.

Senses 1 and 5 also differ only slightly, since the dictionary distinguishes two senses of

hide, based on whether the subject of the verb is animate or inanimate.

Oxford English Dictionary ( O E D ; online)

hide, v. Brit. /hAid/, U.S. /haid/

1

Frequency (in current use): • • • • • • o c

Etymology: Old English hýdan - Middle Dutch huden (huyden, hueden), Middle Low
German huden to hide, Low German (verjhuen < Old Germanic *hudjan, variously referred to
the root of Old English hýd, HIDE n.', and to a pre-Germanic *keudh-, kudh-, seen in
Greek KSVOSIV to hide, cover up, conceal. The late past participle hidden is after strong verbs,
e.g. ride, ridden

1.

43
 a. trans. To put or keep out of sight; to conceal intentionally from the view or notice of others;
to conceal from discovery, to secrete. Frequently in phr. to hide away. Also const, up. (Cf.
sense 2b.)
[•••]
1891 C. Graves Field of Tares 109 There was a fresh canvas upon the easel, the tattered one had
been carefully hidden away.
1928 E. Wallace Flying Squad xvi. 169 Bradley's fond of her. He hid her up once: why shouldn't
he hide her up again?
1948 ' N . Shute' No Highway vi. 168 It was impossible to hide up evidence like that.
f b. To conceal so as to shield or protect. Obs.
[•••]
1382 Wyclif Psalms xxvi[i]. 5 He hidde me in his tabernacle in the day of euelis.
1535 Bible (Coverdale) Psalms lxiii[i]. 2 Hyde me from the gatheringe together of y frowarde.
e

1608 Bp. J. Hall Epist. I. ii. ii. 117 Many hauing nothing but a cote of thatch to hide them from
heauen.
c. to hide one's face: (a) in Biblical language, to turn away or withdraw one's eyes, take no heed.
(Also to hide one's ear, oneself.) (b) = sense ld(b) below.
[•••]
1560 Bible (Geneva) Isa. i . 15 When you shal stretch out your hands, I wil hide mine eyes from
you.
1611 Bible (King James) Lament, iii. 56 Hide not thine ear at my breathing, at my cry.
1780 W. Cowper Table Talk 422 When Avarice starves (and never hides his face) Two or three
millions of the human race.
d. to hide one's head: (a) to protect one's head, to shelter oneself, take shelter; (b) to keep out of
sight, keep from shame or discomfiture.
1667 Milton Paradise Lost iv. 35 O thou [sun] at whose sight all the Starrs Hide thir
diminisht heads.
1778 A . Hamilton Let. 13 Feb. in Papers (1961) I. 428 I believe it [sc. a faction] unmasked its
batteries too soon and begins to hide its head.
1840 E. E. Napier Scenes & Sports Foreign Lands I. p. xxxv Crest-fallen and dejected [they] hide
their diminished heads.
e. all hid: see all hid n.
2. refl. and intr.
a. refl. To put or keep oneself out of sight, or to conceal oneself.
[•••]
1548 Hall's Vnion: Henry IV f. xiij Lurkyng and hidyng him selfe in priuy places.
v

1639 T. B. tr. J.-P. Camus Certain Moral Relations in S. Du Verger tr. J.-P. Camas Admirable
Events 255 The blade hides it selfe in the handle.
1879 F. T. Pollok Sport Brit. Burmah I. 116 Tigers have a wonderful knack of hiding themselves.
b. intr. To conceal oneself. Also with up. hide fox and all after: a cry formerly uttered in the
game of hide-and-seek, when one player hides and the rest seek him. Cf. le.
[•••]
al616 Shakespeare Hamlet (1623) iv. ii. 29 Hide Fox, and all after [cf. hide-and-seek n. 1].
1774 O. Goldsmith Hist. Earth VIII. 199 The recesses in which she ultimately hides.
1872 J. E. Taylor Half-hours in Green Lanes (1877) 108 The slightest sound would cause them
to hide up.
c. to hide out: to go into hiding; to hide from the authorities. U.S.
[•••]
1911 R. D. Saunders Col. Todhunter i. 19 You got to hide out when that word is delivered, suh.
1924 F. R. Bechdolt Tales Old-timers 345 A man could hide out and hold up his herd.
1969 C. F. Burke God is Beautiful, Man (1970) 25 So he tries to find a pad where he can hide out.
3. trans. To keep (a fact or matter) from the knowledge or observation of others; to keep close or
secret.
[•••]

44
1690 tr. U . Chevreau Great Scanderberg 92 The Sultan being defeated, hided Arianissa's
condition.
1771 E. Griffith tr. 'P. Viaud' Shipwreck 130 Protect my mother; hide from her the condition I
am reduced to.
1837 T. Carlyle French Revol. II. iv. vii. 243 He that has a secret should not only hide it,
but hide that he has it to hide.
4. To keep from view (without implication of intention); to prevent from being seen; to obstruct
the view of; to cover up.
[•••]
1709 G. Berkeley Ess. New Theory of Vision §79. 90 His Thumb, with which he might hide a
Tower, or hinder its being seen.
1810 S. Vince Elem. Astron. (ed. 3) xxi. 229 A few seconds before the sun was totally hid.
1856 E. K . Kane Arctic Explor. I. v. 48 Littleton Island is before us, hiding Cape Hatherton.

O E D provides a detailed entry on hide. It distinguishes between its four senses,

some of which are separated into two or more nuanced sub-senses. Sense 1 'to put or keep

out of sight; to conceal intentionally from the view or notice of others' uses conceal as

part of the definition of hide. It is, in fact, often the casethat meaning hide is explained in

terms of conceal and vice versa. Usually, this circular definition appears in relation to the

sense 'to prevent from being seen or noticed', yet not 'keep secret'. In sense 1, hide is

held to appear frequently in form of the phrasal verbs hide away or hide up (as in "hide up

evidence"). Hide can also be used in the sense 'to conceal so as to shield or protect', yet this

use is nowadays obsolete. The verb further appears in the phrases: hide one's ears and

hide one's head, hide one's face.

Merely as an interesting fact, it is worth mentioning that the phrase hide fox and all

after was formerly used as a cry in the children's game hide-and-seek. This, however is

irrelevant to the analysis, since hide used in this sense is not interchangeable with conceal.

Otherwise, the entry brings little information that was not already mentioned.

New Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language ( N W D T E L : 456)

hide (haid) 1. v. pres. part, hid'ing past hid (hid) past part, hiďden (hid'n), hid v.t. to put or
keep (something) out of sight, hidden treasure^ to keep (something) from knowledge of others,
she hid her fears and her savings from him || to block the view of, trees hide the house || v.i. to
keep out of sight, he hid among the trees 2. n. (Br.) a blind (concealed place for a hunter) [O.E.
hýdan]

45
 N W D T E L entry is not very informative. It distinguishes two main senses of the

word. In the first sense, hide is mentioned as a verb. It is further divided into four sense

components: 'to put or keep out of sight', 'to keep (something) form knowledge of

others', 'to block the view o f and as an intransitive verb 'to keep out of sight'. A s

examples of context, it is worthwhile to mention the phrases "hidden treasure", "she hid

her fears and saving", since the corpus analysis from section 3.2.3 shows that the objects

treasure and fears appear as collocates of hide in both the B N C and C O C A . It also

suggests that the verb can be used as ditransitive in the form of hide sth from sb. The

second sense treats hide as a noun, which represents a British word for 'a blind' or

'concealed place for hunters'.

The Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary ( R H W U D : 900)

hide (hid), v., hid, hid-den or hid, hiding, n. — v.t. 1. to conceal from sight; prevent from being
seen or discovered: Where did she hid her jewels? 2. To obstruct view of; cover up: The sun
was hidden by the clouds 3. to conceal from knowledge; keep secret: to hide one's feelings —
v.i. 4. To conceal oneself; lie concealed: He hid in the closet. 5. hide out, to go into or remain
in hiding: After breaking out of jail he hid out in a deserted farmhouse. —n 6. Brit. A place of
concealment for hunting for or observing wildlife; hunting blind, [bef. 900; M E hiden, O E hydan; c.
OFris huda, Gk heuthein to conceal] hid'a-ble, adj. —hid'a-bil'ity, n. —hid'er, n.
—Syn. 1. Screen, mask, cloak, cloak, veil, shroud, disguise. HIDE, CONCEAL, SECRETE mean to
put out of sight or in a secret place. HIDE is the general word: to hide one's money or purpose;
A dog hides a bone. CONCEAL, somewhat more formal, is to cover from sight: A rock concealed
them from view. [...]
—Ant. 1. reveal, display

R H W U D provides a list of synonyms for hide. It also mentions that hide, conceal

and secrete all share the sense 'to put out of sight or in a secret place'. Hide is considered

the general word of the group. Conceal, on the other hand, is considered more formal.

The dictionary mentions reveal and display as antonyms of hide. Antonyms of the verbs

are discussed in greater detail in section 3.1.2.

46
3.1.1.3 Summary of the dictionary analysis

The following table sums up the information found in the dictionaries. The right

column shows the dictionaries, in which the information from the left column was found.

First, the table presents the senses of conceal and hide, which the verbs share in the quoted

dictionaries. Then the table accounts senses, which are specific to only one of the verbs.

Phrases, i n which the verbs occur are put in bold. The table also shows the objects and

modifiers which collocate with conceal and hide in the dictionary examples. Since object

collocates are examined in the corpus analysis, it is interesting to compare, how the data

from the corpora corresponds with the dictionary information. The objects and modifiers

which occur i n the corpora are i n the table marked by asterisk (*). Finally, the table

summarises the additional information about registers, frequencies and etymology of the

verbs.

Table 1 - Overview of the senses of conceal and hide

Shared senses of conceal and hide

- not allow to be seen
( N O D E : 379; 826) - keep something secret; prevent something from being
known or noticed
- to hide something carefully
( L D C E : 275; 671)
- to hide your real feelings or the truth: conceal sth from sb
( C I D E : 279; 666) - to prevent (something) from being seen or known about
- cover or hide sth carefully
- do not let other people know about a piece of information
( C C E D : 331;792) or one's feelings
- of an inanimate object: to cover sth, prevent it from being
seen
- to put or keep out of sight or notice of others
( O E D ; online) - to keep something (information, feeling, etc.) from
knowledge or observation of others, to keep secret
( N W D T E L : 202; - to hide
456) - to keep secret
- withdraw or remove from observation; cover or keep from
( R H W U D : 422; 900) sight
- to keep secret: to prevent or avoid disclosing or divulging
Specific senses of conceal (not shared with hide)
- to hide (the flavour, taste, smell) of something; to make
( O E D ; online)
imperceptible

47
( R H W U D : 422; 900) - to conceal one's identity by using a false name
Specific senses of hide (not shared with conceal)
- [intransitive] conceal oneself
- [intransitive] (hide behind) use (something of someone) to
( N O D E : 379; 826)
protect oneself from criticism or punishment, especially in a
way considered cowardly or unethical
- [intransitive] to go or stay in a place where you hope no
one w i l l find you | [+under/behind/in etc.]; hide from sb
( L D C E : 275; 671)
- to keep someone in a place where other people w i l l not find
them; hide sb from sb or sth
- [intransitive] put yourself where you cannot be seen or
found
( C I D E : 279; 666) - (saying) Don't hide your light under the bushel: do not
keep your good qualities and abilities secret from other
people.
- [intransitive] i f you hide or i f you hide yourself, you go
somewhere where you cannot be easily seen or found
( C C E D : 331;792)
- [intransitive] i f you hide your face, you press your face
against something or cover your face with something
- phrases: hide away, hide up
- to conceal as to shield or protect
- to hide one's face: to in Biblical language, to turn away or
withdraw one's eyes, take no heed
- to hide one's ear, oneself: (= hide one's face), to keep out
( O E D ; online)
of sight, keep from shame or discomfiture
- to hide one's head: to protect one's head, to shelter
oneself, take shelter, to keep out of sight, keep from shame or
discomfiture
- to hide out: to go into hiding, hide from authorities
( N W D T E L : 202; - [intransitive] to keep out of sight
456)
- [intransitive] to conceal oneself; lie concealed
( R H W U D : 422; 900)
- hide out: go into or remain in hiding
Objects collocating with conceal
( N O D E : 379) sea
( L D C E : 275) path, anything
( C I D E : 279) entrance, surprise*, evidence, something
( C C E D : 331) machine, relief, something, cupboard, hair
( O E D ; online) stairs, weapon, waist, others, flavour, under-smell
( R H W U D : 422) gun*
Objects collocating with hide
( N O D E : 826) money, them, dislike
cigarettes, bike, documents, children, disappointment*, fact*,
( L D C E : 671)
anything
( C I D E : 666) diary, prisoner, bald patch, annoyance*
( C C E D : 792) bicycle, face*, excitement*, anything, lip, compound
canvas, evidence, eyes, ear, face*, heads, head, condition,
( O E D ; online)
secret*, Tower, sun
( N W D T E L : 456) fears*, savings, house

48
 ( R H W U D : 900) jewels, savings, house
Modifiers of conceal
( O E D ; online) cleverly*, effectually, quite
Modifiers of hide
( N O D E : 826) hardly*
( L D C E : 671) completely*
( C C E D : 792) completely*
( O E D ; online) carefully*, totally*
Registers of conceal
( L D C E : 275) formal
( R H W U D : 422) formal
Register of hide (n/a) 20

Frequency of conceal
(CCED: 331)
(OED; online)
Frequency of hide
(CCED: 792)
(OED; online)
Etymology of conceal
(NODE: 379) Middle English: from Old French conceler
Anglo-Norman conceler, conceller, conceiler, conselser, cunceler
(OED; online)
(first third of the 13 century, or earlier as cunceler)
th

( N W D T E L : 202) from Old French conceler

( R H W U D : 275)
Etymology of hide
(NODE: 826)
(OED; online)
( N W D T E L : 456)
( R H W U D : 900)
1275-1325; from Middle English conselen, concelen from
Anglo-French conceler from Latin concelare (to hide)
Old English hydan, of West Germanic origin
Old English hydan Dutch huden (huyden, hueden), Middle Low
German huden to hide [... ]
Old English hydan
before 900; Middle English hi den from Old English hydan,
from Old Frisian huda

According to the dictionaries of the English language, conceal and hide share two

senses 'prevent from being seen or noticed' and 'keep secret', although the phrasing of

the senses differs. Some dictionaries distinguish between the slightest differences in

meanings and therefore state more senses than others, which tend to focus on more

general use of the verbs, paying less attention to the contexts in which they can occur.

Even though both conceal and hide can be used either as transitive as well as intransitive

verb, the use of conceal without the object is less common, since only O E D mention

None of the quoted dictionaries give information about registers in which hide is used.

49
conceal as intransitive, whereas hide is commonly used without an object. The verbs are

also characteristic for different language registers. L D C E and R H W U D suggest that

conceal belong to the formal register, but no information is given about any typical

registers of hide.

Hide is often found in the form of a phrasal verb {hide away, hide out). The

analysis, however, has not uncovered any instance of conceal in a phrasal verb.

Concerning the frequency of the words, C C E D states that hide is somewhat more frequent

than conceal, however, O E D puts the verbs into the same frequency band. The etymology

of the verbs is also different. Conceal appears in M i d d l e English in 13 century as a

th

borrowed word from French. Unlike hide, which existed in O l d English before 900 and

is of West Germanic origin.

3.1.2 Thesauri and dictionaries of synonyms

This section seeks to compare the definitions of conceal and hide as they appear

in various thesauri and dictionaries of synonyms. Since thesauri and dictionaries of

synonyms list synonymous expressions in relations to each other, several entries are

quoted with the aim to explore the relations that hold between conceal and hide in depth.

In this section, conceal and hide are not treated separately, as was the case in the previous

section, but the entries are discussed in pairs, so that they can be conveniently compared

and contrasted.

Special attention is paid to the antonyms of conceal and hide, which some of the

thesauri and dictionaries provide. A s was already mentioned in section 2.2.3, one of the

methods of testing synonymy lies in the investigation of the antonyms of the synonymous

words. So far, the dictionary analysis showed that hide and conceal are very close in

50
meaning. The antonyms shared by the verbs might reveal some new facts about the nature

of relation between conceal and hide.

The consulted thesauri and dictionaries of synonyms were the following:

Chamber's Thesaurus: A Comprehensive Word-finding Dictionary (CT; 1988),

Funk and Wagnall 's Standard Handbook of Synonyms, Antonyms and Prepositions

( F W S H S A P ; cl947),

Rogeťs II The New Thesaurus ( R N T ; 1980),

The Pan Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms ( P D S A ; 1980),

The Penguin Dictionary of English Synonyms and Antonyms ( P D E S A ; 1992),

Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus ( W C T ; 1988),

Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms ( W N D S ; 1984).

Funk and Wagnall's Standard Handbook of Synonyms, Antonyms and Prepositions

( F W S H S A P : 233-234)

HIDE

bury, cloak, conceal, cover, disguise, dissemble, ensconce, entomb, inter, mask,
overwhelm, screen, screen, secrete, supress, veil

Hide is the general term, including all the rest, signifying to put out of sight or beyond
ready observation or approach; a thing may be hidden by intention, by accident, or by the
imperfection of the faculties of the one from who it is hidden; in their games, children
hide the slipper, or hide themselves from each other; a man unconsciously hides a picture
from another by standing before it, or hides a thing from himself by laying something else
over it. Even an unconscious object may hide another; as, a cloud hides the sun, or a
building hides some part of the prospect by intervening between it and the observer's
position. A s an act of persons, to conceal is more often intentional; one may hide his face
in anger, grief or abstraction; he conceals his face when he fears recognition. A house is
hidden by foliage; the bird's nest is artfully concealed. [...]

A N T O N Y M S : admit, advertise, avow, betray, confess, disclose, discover, divulge,

exhibit, exhume, expose, lay bare, lay open, make known, manifest, promulgate,
publish, raise, reveal, show, tell, uncover, unmask, unveil. [...]

51
 The first entry is taken from F W S H S A P , since it provides information about the

crucial differences between conceal and hide. The entry is not quoted in full, yet only the

relevant parts concerning conceal and hide are copied here. First, it gives the general term

(hyperonym) for a group of synonyms (i.e. H I D E ) . Bellow the head term are listed the

synonymous verbs in alphabetical order. Further follows a text, in which the synonyms

are distinguished from each other. The entry is concluded with a list of alphabetically

sorted antonyms common for all of the synonymous of the verbs.

From the entry follows that hide is more general than conceal. It is also said that

whereas hide may or may not imply intent, conceal is more frequently intentional. The

differences in use of the verbs are conveniently illustrated by the phrase conceal/hide

one 'sface. Unlike, hide one's face, which is used in a wide number of contexts, conceal

one'sface is used primarily in cases when one wishes to keep one's identity secret.

Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms ( W N D S : 171; 401)

conceal hide, screen, secrete, bury, cache, ensconce

Ana cloak, mask, disguise, dissemble, camouflage
Ant reveal —Con disclose, discover, divulge, betray, (see REVEAL): expose, exhibit,
display, show, parade, flaunt: manifest, evidence, show, evince

hide, conceal, screen, secrete, cache, bury, ensconce are comparable when meaning to
withhold or withdraw from sight or observation. Hide, the general term, and conceal are
often interchangeable. But hide may or may not suggest intent <let me go that I may hide
myself 'in the field - 1 Sam 20:5 (AV)> <the snow hides the rough ground> or putting into
a place out of the range of other's sight <hide the money under the mattress> <he hid
somewhere in his grimy little soul a genuine love for music - Kipling> Conceal, on the
other hand, ordinarily implies intention <hidden things that never have been concealed,
that had been merely dropped into forgotten corners and out-of-the-way places, to be
found a long afterward - Roberts> or effective hiding <Sophia had held the telegram
concealed in her hand and its information concealed in her hear? - Bennet> or a refusal
to divulge <I am glad to be constrained to utter that which torment me to conceal - Shak. >
<Elizabeth was forced to conceal her love from her father - Woolf> [...]
Ana cloak, mask, disguise, dissemble, camouflage: supress, repress
Con expose, parade, flaunt, display, exhibit, show, emerge, loom, appear

52
 W N D S mentions that hide and the rest of given synonyms share the sense 'to

withhold or withdraw from sight or observation'. L i k e in F W S H S A P , hide is the general

for a group o f synonyms, which share the sense 'withhold or withdraw from sight or

observation'. However, this dictionary emphasizes that from the list of synonyms,

conceal and hide are the closest is meaning, for it states that the two verbs are often

interchangeable. A s was mentioned in F W S H S A P , W N D S states that while one usually

conceals sth is on purpose, one may or may hide sth intentionally. Hide can also suggest

'putting into a place out of the range of other's sight'. Furthermore, conceal may suggest

not only intent but also "effective hiding" or "a refusal to divulge".

W N D S also states analogous words {Ana), which are close in meaning to the entry

word, and some of them classify as near-synonyms, but some are more general then the

entry word, others more specific or their senses only overlap. However, they share some

important aspects with the entry words ( W N D S : 30a). Conceal and hide share five

analogous words: cloak, mask, disguise, dissemble and camouflage. Some of these words

are described as synonyms i n other dictionaries.

Lastly, W N D S provides the verbs with a list of contrasted words {Con), which

sharply differ in meaning from the entry word. Some are antonyms of its synonyms, while

other oppose only a part of the word's meaning. Conceal and hide share three contrasted

words: expose, exhibit and display. It may be worth it to note that in P D S E A , display is

classified directly as a common antonym of the verbs.

Chamber's Thesaurus: A Comprehensive Word-finding Dictionary ( C T 1988: 110; 295)

conceal v. bury, camouflage, cloak, cover, disguise, dissemble, hide, keep dark, mask,
obscure, screen secrete, shelter, sink, smother, submerge, suppress, veil.
antonym reveal

hide abscond, bury, cache, camouflage, cloak, conceal, cover, disguise, earth, eclipse,
1

ensconce, feal, go to ground, go underground, hole up, keep dark, lie low, mask, obscure,

53
occult, screen, secrete, shadow, shelter, shroud, stash, suppress, take cover, tappice, veil,
withhold
antonym display, reveal, show

C T offers fifteen common synonyms for both conceal and hide. There are only

three synonyms of conceal that the verb does not share with hide. These are: dissemble,

which suggest hiding one's feelings or intentions, sink, which implies effective hiding

and smother, which is often used in connection to one's feelings. Synonyms of hide that

are not mentioned with conceal are: abscond, cache, earth, eclipse, ensconce, feal, go to

ground, go underground, hole up, lie low, occult, shadow, shroud, stash take cover,

tappice, withhold. Some of the synonyms belong to the informal register or are even

colloquial. Since conceal is considered more formal, it could be the reason why C T does

not mention them as synonyms of conceal. However, The Pan Dictionary of Synonyms

and Antonyms, which is quoted bellow, states show and display as the antonyms of both

hide and conceal.

The Pan Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms ( P D S A : 61, 148)

conceal vb. hide, cover, obscure, secrete, ANT. reveal, show, display, expose.
hide vb. conceal, cover, mask, screen, camouflage, cloak, shroud, veil: You can't hide
your true feelings from me. n. [...] ANT vb. show, display, reveal.

A s the first synonyms of conceal, P D S A state hide. Conversely, the first synonym

of hide is conceal. This, again, suggest that the verbs are very close. The verbs also share

a common synonym cover, in the sense 'to keep away from sight and knowledge'. P D S A

assigns the synonyms obscure and secrete only to conceal, unlike C T , which states that

obscure and secrete can serve as synonyms of hide as well. In the example sentence You

can't hide your true feelings from me, appears the collocation hide one's feelings, which

appears frequently in the B N C and C O C A , (see 3.2.3)

54
The Penguin Dictionary of English Synonyms and Antonyms ( P D E S A : 82, 216)

conceal hide, secrete, disguise, dissemble, screen, cloak, mask, camouflage, veil,
obscure, cover, bury, suppress, REVEAL

hide v, conceal, cloak, shroud, cover, screen, mask, veil, dissemble, disguise,
1

camouflage, obscure, eclipse, suppress, bury, secrete, lie low. REVEAL

P D E S A states only one antonym to both conceal and hide. The common antonym

is reveal. It might be worthwile to point out that is i n both conceal x reveal and hide x

reveal are reversive opposites, while they involve undoing of some action. Reveal can be

used as an antonym to both conceal and hide i n the shared sense 'keep away from sight

or observation' as i n "conceal/hide x reveal the moon", as well as it can be used as an

antonym of the sense 'keep secret' as in "conceal/hide x reveal a secret".

Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus ( W C T : 158, 400)

conceal vb syn HIDE, bury, cache, cover, ||ditch, ensconce, occult, screen, secrete, stash
rel camouflage, disguise, dissemble
idiom keep (something) dark
con betray, divulge; evidence, evince, manifest
ant reveal

hide vb withdraw or withhold from sight or observation <they hid their lute i n a cave>
syn bury, ||bush up, cache, conceal, cover, || ditch, ensconce, occult, plant, screen,
secrete, stash
rel mantle, mask, obscure, shade, shield; entomb, inter; cloak, curtain, shroud, veil;
harbour, lodge, seclude, shelter
con bare, disclose, discover, display, exhibit, expose, reveal, show; uncover, unmask,
unveil, unwrap; flaunt, parade, show off

W C T lists not only synonyms of the word i n question, but also related words,

which do not classify as synonyms, but their meanings are still close enough to be

compared with the entry word {hide, conceal). Related words are sometimes divided by

semi-colons, which suggests that they belong to different subgroups. Words within one

group are more similar i n meaning, compared to words i n other groups. W C T also

provides idiomatic equivalents of the entry words (abbreviated as idiom), contrasted

55
words (con) and antonyms (ant). The difference between contrasted words and antonyms

is that whereas contrasted words oppose only in part the meaning of the target word,

antonyms are by the W C T defined as words "so opposed in meaning to another word, its

equal breath or range of application that it negates or nullifies every single one of its

implications", in other words, it cancels out its meaning. ( W C T : 26a)

W C T offers ten synonyms of conceal. The synonym HIDE is put into small

capitals, which signifies that more information about the group of words is provided in

the entry on hide. The sign ||, symbolises that ditch (and all the words marked by the

symbol) in sense of 'hide' is limited in its use. Camouflage, disguise and dissemble are

according to W T C only related words and not synonyms, unlike in P D E S A , C T , where

the words are classified as synonyms. Arguably, the W C T division on synonyms and

related words is more convenient, since camouflage, disguise and dissemble because their

meanings differ from the basic meaning that other synonyms of conceal share (i.e.

'withhold or withdraw from sight or observation'). The division between contrasted

words and antonyms is also useful. Betray, divulge, evidence, evince, manifest stand in

marked contrast to the group of synonyms of conceal, however, they are not exactly

antonymous.

According to the W C T , the basic sense of hide is 'withhold or withdraw from

sight'. It offers plenty synonyms, but the words ditch and bush up need to be used with

caution, since they are restricted in their use. The entry does not provide any antonym of

hide, but it offers several contrasted words, which are again divided by the semi-colon

into three sets of related words.

In W T C , reveal is offered as the antonym of conceal. The given contrasted verbs

betray and divulge can be found in the Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms as

synonyms of reveal, with the difference that betray "often implies a divulging o f a secret,

56
but it carries either a stronger and more obvious suggestion of a breach of faith [...] or a

disclosure against one's w i l l " ( W N D S : 694) and similarly divulge carries "a suggestion

of impropriety or of a breach of confidence" (ibid.) Evidence, evince, manifest are in

W N D S stated as synonyms of show with the shared meaning 'to reveal something

outwardly by or as i f by a sign or to serve to make something outwardly visible'

( W N D S : 734). Evidence however implies an act that serves as a proof of something in

question, evince implies some outward marks (e.g. of an emotion) and manifest implies

fuller and plainer showing of something, (ibid.) A l l of the contrasted words of conceal

relate to the sense 'keep secret'. Interestingly, the thesaurus does not mention reveal as

an antonym of hide, but it states it as a contrasted word. The reason for it might be that

hide is more general and reveal is therefore opposed to it only in part of its meaning.

Contrasted words of hide are divided into three groups according to the senses of hide to

which they can be contrasted. These groups are divided by a semi-colon. The first group,

which encloses both reveal and show, oppose the sense 'keep secret'. The second group

can be contrasted with hide in the sense 'to put or keep out of sight' and the third with 'to

conceal oneself.

Roget'sNew Thesaurus ( R N T 1980: 151)

conceal verb

1. To put or keep out of sight 1. HIDE 1

2. To prevent something from being known 2. COVER

hide verb
1

1. To put or keep out of sight: They hid the stolen booty in an abandoned mine
shaft.
2. To conceal in obscurity.
3. To prevent (something) form being known.
4. To cut off from sight.

1. Syns: bury, bush up (Chiefly Regional), cash, conceal, ensconce, occult,

plant (Informal), secrete, stash.

57
 2. OBSCURE verb
3. COVER verb

4. BLOCK OUT at block.

R N T lists two senses of conceal. The first sense, 'to put or keep out o f sight' is

according to the dictionary synonymous with hide (see below), whereas the second sense
1

'to prevent something from being known' is stated to be synonymous with the verb cover.

The thesaurus lists four senses of hide. Two of them, sense 1 and 3 are identical with

senses 1 and 2 of conceal.

Since hide 1
offers two more senses that are not mentioned with conceal ('to

conceal in obscurity' and 'to cut off from sight), at first sight the definition suggests that

hide is more general verb than conceal. Nevertheless, it can be argued that conceal can
1

be used in senses 2 and 4 of hide as well.

Following table summarizes the information found in the quoted thesauri and the

dictionaries of synonyms. First, it shows the synonyms and the related words of conceal

and hide, then antonyms and the contrasted words. Words that appear with of the verbs

are put in bold.

Table 2 - Summary: conceal and hide in the thesauri and dictionaries of synonyms

Synonyms
dictionaries conceal hide
n/a bury, cloak, CONCEAL, cover,
disguise, dissemble,
( F W S H S A P : 233-234) 21
ensconce, entomb, inter,
mask, overwhelm, screen,
screen, secrete, supress, veil
HIDE, bury, bush up, bury, bush up, cache,
cache, cover, ditch, CONCEAL, cover, ditch,
( W N D S : 171; 401)
ensconce, occult, screen, ensconce, occult, plant,
secrete, stash screen, secrete, stash
bury, camouflage, cloak, abscond, bury, cache, cloak,
( C T : 110; 295)
cover, disguise, CONCEAL, cover, disguise,

21
FWSHSAP offers an extensive list containing synonyms and antonyms of hide, but none such list is
provided for conceal since the book gives no separate entry on conceal but treats the word only as one of
the synonyms of the general term hide.

58
 dissemble, HIDE, keep earth, eclipse, ensconce, feal,
dark, mask, obscure, go to ground, go
screen, secrete, shelter, underground, hole up, keep
sink, smother, submerge, dark, lie low, mask,
suppress, veil obscure, occult, screen,
secrete, shadow, shelter,
shroud, stash, suppress, take
cover, tappice, veil, withhold
HIDE, cover, obscure, CONCEAL, cover, mask,
( P D S A : 61; 148)
secrete screen, obscure, secrete
HIDE, bury, cache, cover, bury, bush up, cache,
ditch, ensconce, occult, CONCEAL, cover, ditch,
( W C T : 158; 400)
plant, screen, secrete, ensconce, occult, screen,
stash secrete, stash
HIDE, secrete, disguise, CONCEAL, cloak, shroud,
dissemble, screen, cloak, cover, screen, mask, veil,
mask, camouflage, veil, dissemble, disguise,
( P D E S A : 82; 216)
obscure, cover, bury, camouflage, obscure,
suppress eclipse, supress, bury,
secrete, lie low
HIDE, cover bury, bush up, cache,
CONCEAL, ensconce, occult,
(RNT: 151; 451)
plant, secrete, stash, cover,
block out
Related words
cloak, mask, disguise, cloak, mask, disguise,
( W N D S : 171; 401) dissemble, camouflage dissemble, camouflage,
suppress, repress
camouflage, disguise, mantle, mask, obscure,
dissemble shade, shield, entomb, inter,
( W C T : 158; 400) cloak, curtain, shroud, veil,
harbour, lodge, seclude,
shelter
Antonyms
n/a admit, advertise, avow,
betray, confess, disclose,
discover, divulge, exhibit,
exhume, expose, lay bare, lay
( F W S H S A P : 233-234)
open, make known, manifest,
promulgate, publish, raise,
reveal, show, tell, uncover,
unmask, unveil
( W N D S : 171; 401) reveal n/a
( C T : 110; 295) reveal display, reveal, show
reveal, show, display, show, display, reveal
( P D S A : 61; 148)
expose
( W C T : 158; 400) reveal n/a
( P D E S A : 82; 216) reveal reveal
Contrasted words

59
 disclose, discover, divulge,
betray, expose, exhibit,
( W N D S : 171; 401) display, show, parade,
flaunt, manifest, evidence,
evince
betray, divulge, evidence,
evince, manifest
( W C T : 158; 400)
expose, parade, flaunt,
display, exhibit, show,
emerge, loom, appear
bare, disclose, discover,
display, exhibit, expose,
reveal, show, uncover,
unmask, unveil, unwrap,
flaunt parade

To sum up, the above consulted thesauri and dictionaries show that hide and

conceal share many synonyms. Among those which appear most commonly in the

dictionaries are: bury, camouflage, cover, cloak, disguise, screen, secrete and veil.

However, it could be argued that the words F W S H S A P states as antonyms of hide

could more conveniently be classified as contrasted words, since they oppose only a part

of the meaning of hide. Rather than antonyms of hide they are the antonyms of synonyms

of hide.

The table demonstrates that the common synonyms of conceal and hide is reveal.

In contexts in which conceal and hide are interchangeable, they have the antonym reveal.

Let us consider two typical contexts in which conceal and hide are interchangeable:

(1) to conceal/hide an intention

(2) clouds conceal/hide the sun

In case of both phrases, reveal is the antonym of both hide and conceal. Reveal opposes

both senses which conceal and hide share, i.e. 'keep secret' and 'prevent from being

seen'. Therefore, it can be argued that in contexts, in which reveal is the antonym of

conceal, conceal can be interchanged with hide and vice versa. P D E S A states that conceal

and hide share two more synonyms: show and display. Show works well as a shared

antonym in (1) since one may show (though usually not display) his or her intentions,

however, it does not work in (2), since clouds do not show nor display the sun.

60
3.2 Real life usage: Corpus analysis

3.2.1 General frequency

This subchapter focuses on the frequencies of hide and conceal in which they

appear in two English corpora: the B N C and C O C A . First, however, it remains necessary

to state the limitations of the frequency analysis. The corpora show how many times and

in which grammatical forms a word occurs in the corpora, yet they do not distinguish

between different senses of the word. Neither do they distinguish between the contexts in

which the word appears. A s a result, even the occurrences in which the verbs are not

synonymous are included in the count.

Table 3 shows the total frequency (freq.) of the verbs conceal and hide as well as

the frequencies of all the verb forms in which they appear in the B N C .

Table 3 - Frequency of the verbs conceal and hide ( B N C )

conceal hide
verb form freq. verb form freq.
concealed 889 hide 2,017
conceal 657 hidden 1,779
concealing 233 hiding 861
conceals 129 hid 612
hides 147
Total frequency 1,908 5,416

A s the B N C suggests, hide occurs in the corpus considerably more often than

conceal. This information is in strict contradiction with the frequency data from O E D

(online), since O E D (online) puts both conceal and hide into 6/8 frequency band,

signifying that the verbs are used equally often. Similarly, C C E D states that hide is likely

to appear only slightly more often than conceal, however, in the B N C , hide is,

approximately, up to 2.8 times more frequent than conceal in the B N C .

61
 According to the B N C , conceal is the most frequently represented in the corpus

in the -ed form, less frequent are then the -ing and the -s forms of the verb. This might

suggest that conceal is more often used to refer to situations, in which an act of concealing

was or has been already accomplished. Hide, on the other hand, is most frequently used

in the base form (hide). This might indicate that hide often appears i n a verb phrase as a

non-finite verb (e.g. try to hide, should hide). Even fewer times than conceal, hide occurs

in the form of non-third person present tense. Unlike in the case of conceal, hide appears

in the corpus more frequently i n the -ing form than i n the past tense. L i k e i n the case of

conceal, the -s form is quite infrequent.

Table 4 shows the frequency of the synonymous verb in C O C A . Since the corpus

is considerably bigger than the B N C , it presents a greater sample of the English language,

and thus its data are expected to reflect the real-life usage of conceal and hide more

accurately.

Table 4 - Frequency of the verbs conceal and hide ( C O C A )

conceal hide
verb form freq. verb form freq.
conceal 2,682 hide 16,000
concealed 2,237 hidden 11,747
concealing 946 hiding 10,354
conceals 488 hid 4,791
hides 1,677
Total frequency 6,355 46,648

In C O C A , hide is up to seven times more frequent than conceal, which is in direct

contradiction to what the entries i n the dictionaries O E D (online) and C C E D state about

the verb's frequency, (see 3.1.1)

In contrast to the B N C ' s results, C O C A present the base form of conceal as the

most frequent. The form concealed follows as the second most frequent. Conceal in

62
the -ing form of appears in proportion to the corpora size slightly more frequently in

C O C A than in the B N C . The results for hide more or less correspond with those from the

BNC.

3.2.2 Text-types: Registers

B N C provides noteworthy information on distribution of conceal and hide among

various text-types 22
and domains. Even though, this is not the primary focus of the thesis,

the data gathered about the registers in which the verbs are usually used can offer some

helpful insight on the actual use of the verbs. Table 5 offers two numeral targets. The

"frequency" column shows the number of the verbs' occurrences in a certain text-type,

but since the various text-types considerably differ in size, it is desirable to include the

relative frequency (rel. freq.), which "compares the frequency in a specific text-type (part

of corpus) to the whole corpus or compares frequencies in different text-types (parts of

corpus) even i f they are not the same size." ("User guide"; SketchEngine) The numbers

then suggest for which of the text-types are the key words {conceal and hide) most typical.

Table 5 - Text-types in B N C

BNC conceal hide

Text-types frequency rel. freq. frequency rel. freq.
written books and periodicals 1,758 114.20 4,844 110.90
written miscellaneous 96 66.60 171 41.80
spoken context-governed 41 34.40 167 73.70
written-to-be-spoken 10 38.80 138 40.70
spoken demographic 3 3.80 96 131.20

22
"text-type is a generic name for values assigned to structures (e.g. documents, paragraphs, sentences
and others) inside a corpus. Text-types can refer to the source (newspaper, book etc.), medium (spoken,
written), time (year, century) or any other type of information about text." ("User guide"; SketchEngine)

63
 Table 5 shows that conceal and hide typically occur i n written books and

periodicals. Conceal is slightly more common in the "written miscellaneous" category of

texts. Both the verbs are equally represented i n written-to-be-spoken category, which

includes written materials which are meant to be read aloud, such as, for instance, scripts

for television news broadcasts. However, neither of the verbs is particularly characteristic

for this text-type. More importantly, the data from the table shows that hide appears often

in spoken register, as it is suggested by the high relative frequencies i n "spoken

context-governed" and "spoken demographic", text-types. Conceal, on the other hand,

appears in spoken text-types only seldom.

Within the written register, the B N C distinguishes between several domains for

written corpus text. The following table shows i n which domains or subject fields of

written corpus conceal and hide typically occur. Again, the relative frequencies are given

in the table, since the domains are not equally sized. Raw frequencies (exact numbers of

occurrences or "hits") are also provided, so that they can be compared as well.

Table 6 - Domain for written corpus texts

BNC conceal hide

Domain for written corpus texts freq. rel. freq. freq. rel. freq.
imaginative 648 200.90 2,516 274.80
informative: world affairs 325 97.30 623 65.70
informative: social science 205 75.00 392 50.50
informative: arts 186 145.80 312 86.20
informative: leisure 169 71.30 645 95.80
informative: commerce & finance 98 69.00 131 32.50
informative: natural and pure science 97 131.20 115 54.80
informative: applied science 76 54.70 196 49.70
informative: belief and thought 60 100.80 181 107.10

The data suggests that conceal and hide typically occur in imaginative domain of

the corpus. Thus, conceal and hide appear i n imaginative texts such as novels, short

stories or poems. Commonly, conceal appears i n the domain of informative texts that

64
concern primarily the arts and natural and pure science, followed by texts concerning

belief and thought. Less often it can be found in the domain of world affairs. In the B N C ,

conceal occurs least often in the domain of applied science. Hide, as it has already been

stated, is the most characteristic for imaginative domain, texts and for the informative

domain is less typical. The least often, it is used in the domains of commerce and finance.

However, it needs to be emphasized that one word is claimed to be typical for a

certain domain, it concerns only the word itself. If, for instance, conceal is said to be

typical for the domain of arts, it does not mean that hide occurs in that domain less often

than conceal. O n the contrary, hide is generally more common than conceal and it is

therefore more frequent in all of the domains. The relative frequency rather show that

conceal is more likely to appear in that domain than in others. In the table, the column

"frequency" allows us to determine which of the two verbs is more common in any of the

domain. The following two graphs illustrate the numbers in which hide and conceal occur

within the various domains for written corpus text.

Graph 1 - Frequency distribution of conceal among various domains for written corpus
texts ( B N C )

conceal
• imaginative

- informative: world affairs

- informative: social science

informative: arts

• informative: leisure

• informative: commerce & finance

65
Graph 2 - Frequency distribution of hide among various domains for written corpus
texts ( B N C )

In C O C A , the text-types are divided into five categories: spoken, fiction,

magazine, newspaper and academic. It gains a certain advantage over the B N C , while the

text-types in C O C A are distributed quite evenly, each of the categories encompasses

around 20% of the corpus material ( C O C A ) whereas in the B N C the material in unevenly

divided between 90% of written text-types and 10% spoken text-types. Table 6 shows the

distribution of conceal and hide among the five categories of text-types. The table

provides information on the raw frequency of the verb in each of the text-types, as well

as on the normalized frequency - a number in which the verb in question appear per

million words (abbreviated to "per. m i l " ) . Graphs 3 and 4 then graphically illustrates the

distributions. Given that hide is considerably more frequent than conceal i n C O C A , it is

inconvenient to present the text-type distribution in only one summarizing graph, since

the data on conceal would not be well distinguishable in such graph.

66
Table 7 - Text-types in C O C A

COCA conceal hide

Text-types frequency per mil. frequency per mil.
spoken 691 5.92 7,394 63.33
fiction 2,225 19.89 19,235 171.98
magazine 1,306 11.13 8,247 70.27
newspaper 823 7.28 5,885 52.08
academic 1,308 11.74 3,808 34.18

Graph 3 - Frequency distribution of conceal among various text-types in C O C A

conceal

o
frequncy spoken fiction magazine newspaper academic

According to C O C A , conceal occurs most often in fiction. It frequently appears

in academic texts and in magazines. This suggests that conceal is frequently used in the

formal style, as some of the dictionaries ( L D C E , R H W U D ) note. Contrastingly, conceal

occurs least frequently in the spoken register, followed by newspapers.

67
Graph 4 - Frequency distribution of hide among various text-types in C O C A

hide

20000
18000
16000
14000
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
frequency

Hide, is similarly like conceal, most common in fiction. It is, nevertheless,

important to bear in mind that hide is still, as the frequency data from the table clearly

indicates, about 8.5 times more frequent in fiction than conceal. Hide further commonly

occurs in magazines and in the spoken register. Unlike conceal however, it occurs least

frequently in academic texts, which might mean that it is not a characteristic word for the

formal style.

3.2.3 Collocation: objects

In the section 2.1.1., which introduced the Leech's seven types of meaning, there

was a mention of collocative meaning, which represents "what is communicated through

association with words which tend to occur in the environment of another word"

(Leech 1983: 23). Objects of verbs contribute to the verbs' meanings as well as they allow

to distinguish between their senses. Arguably, the verb love in "I love pizza" means

something slightly different than in the sentence "Jack loves his wife". Therefore, when

it comes to distinguishing between synonymous verbs, it is worth paying attention to

68
which objects collocate with them. In this thesis, the B N C (accessed via SketchEngine)

is used as the main source for the object analysis of conceal and hide. M a i n l y two tools

of SketchEngine were used - The W o r d Sketch Difference function, which allow users

to distinguish between similar words, and W o r d Sketch function, which on one page

offers a summary of grammatical and collocational behaviour of a word ("User guide";

Sketch Engine). However, since the size of B N C is quite limited, the results from the

B N C are compared with data from C O C A , which is considerably bigger and up to date.

Therefore, C O C A , in some respects, brings more accurate data. Yet compared to the

B N C , C O C A has one major disadvantage, i.e. it does not sort the words in syntactic

relations. Hence, the B N C data is used as the primary source.

This section is further subdivided into three sections. The first section examines

the objects that in B N C appear in the environment of both conceal and hide. The second

section focuses on the objects of conceal only and the third on the objects of hide.

3.2.3.1 Objects of conceal and hide

The B N C lists fourteen objects that collocate with both conceal and hide. These

objects can be conveniently divided into four semantically related groups or small

semantic fields (see 2.1.3): (1) concrete objects, (2) emotions, (3) bodily reactions and (4)

abstract concepts. Such division allows us to distinguish between the senses, in which the

verbs are used in connection with the objects. These senses can be matched as follows:

'prevent something from being seen or noticed' with (1) and (3), 'keep secret one's own

feelings so that no one knows about them' with (2) and 'keep an information or a fact

from knowledge of others; to secrete an information' with (4). The tables 8-11 list the

objects in the semantic groups. Each table also states the frequencies of the objects. To

highlight which of the two verbs occurs more often with the stated objects, the higher

69
frequency figure is always put in bold. The tables also present the collocations in context

of the example sentences. It would not be convenient to cite the complete bibliographic

source for each example. Instead, the examples are provided only with their B N C codes

in brackets.

Table 8 - Objects of conceal and hide: concrete objects

BNC conceal hide Example sentences

objects frequency She wore a mask to conceal her face. (H98)
BNC COCA BNC COCA 'Oh, God...!' she groaned, blushing like mad
and lowering her head to hide her face in
face his chest. ( J Y D )
2 54 66 642
Margery's face was hidden by her hair as
she bent over the stove. ( H R A )

A s the table 8 suggests, conceal and hide both collocate with face. However, since

the B N C states only two examples i n which face appears as an object of conceal, it can

be maintained that face typically collocates with the verb hide. The corpora data confirms

F W S H S A P ' s statement that "as an act o f persons, to conceal is more often intentional;

one may hide his face i n anger, grief or abstraction; he conceals his face when he fears

recognition" ( F W S H S A P : 233-234) In both occurrences i n the B N C , conceal one's face

is used i n the sense 'intentionally keep one's identity secret'. O n the other hand, the

corpus data shows that one hides the face for multiple reasons and from various impulses.

In the first of the two example sentences from the table, a woman covers her face in

embarrassment, and in the second, hair covers the face so that it is hidden. Nevertheless,

it is important to stress out that since the B N C offers only few instances of conceal one's

face, it does not provide enough data, which would reliably confirm the statement in

F W S H S A P . Therefore, the results were compared with C O C A . The American corpus

offers 66 instances of conceal one's face and i n clear majority of the cases i n which a

person conceals his or her face, the reason is to avoid being recognized.

70
 In the B N C , conceal and hide frequently collocate with word for various emotions.

The table below includes nine emotions, which collocates with the verbs, and their

frequencies in the B N C compared with the results from C O C A . The emotions in the table

are not sorted alphabetically. Rather, it attempts to put together words which are somehow

related. Therefore, the first in the table stands the general word feeling, which could be

considered a hyperonym of the rest. Then follow the words, representing positive

emotions {amusement), feelings of excitement {astonishment, etc.), and finally negative

emotions {disappointment, etc.).

Table 9 - Objects of conceal and hide: emotions

BNC conceal hide Example sentences

objects frequency I liked the way you did not conceal your
BNC COCA BNC COCA feelings but revealed vourself to us as a
real and vulnerable person who had
feelings you were not ashamed to share
feeling 23

12 21 36 103 with us. ( C K S )

It was naive to think she could hide her
feelings from him. (JY3)
The noble seemed to relax visibly, and
Rostov concealed sour amusement. (FSE)
'There's no need to hide your amusement,
amusement 1 1 11
j L u c y - I'm well aware of it,' he snapped
coldly, making no effort to hide his
irritation. ( H H B )
Annie, hardly able to conceal her
astonishment at the way K e l l y had been
able to ride after the events of the previous
astonishment 4 3 5 8 night; [...](BP7)
Alexei was unable to hide his
astonishment at Siban's subdued tone.
(G17)
Neither he nor Peter can conceal
excitement at being back in the limelight
again. (CH5)
excitement 5 10 8 19 N o w the excitement is hidden away inside
the bland vanilla-coloured machines
themselves, frighteningly complex and
entirely baffling. ( H S G )

23
RHWUD mentions feelings as objects of hide in an example expression: to hide one's feelings. This
suggests that, in correspondence with the corpora data, this collocation is very common.

71
 He didn't even try to hide the excitement
in his voice. ( A C B )

Fred could hardly conceal his surprise.

(HH3)
surprise 10 27 17 38
Huy's stomach leapt, but he hid his
surprise from Merymose. (H84)
B i l l concealed his disappointment that the
man had failed to comment on the
appearance of the pride of the yard. (BP7)
disappointment 7 14 13 69 M y heart chilled and I gnawed at my lip to
hide my disappointment. (H90)
The Archdeacon's disappointment was
courteously hidden. ( H A 2 )
She was working hard to conceal her
distress, but the tremor in her voice was
unmistakable. ( G V P )
distress 4 1 3 4
'Oh, ma'am!' W i l s o n said, and covered her
mouth with her hand to try to hide her
distress. ( A D S )
Athelstan, trying to conceal his
embarrassment, signalled at Watkin and
Pike to lift the bier and follow him and
C r i m , bearing a lighted taper, into the
embarrassment 3 4 12 22 cemetery. ( B P H )
To hide her embarrassment she fumbled
in her handbag for a little mirrored
compact backed with tortoiseshell and
turned away to repowder her face. (FU8)
Sometimes they must conceal their own
fears to avoid alarming the child. ( B M 1 )
fear 24
2 4 16 32
In Kampuchea, though, people are said to
smile to hide their fear. (HSF)

The expression conceal/hide one'sfeelings appears in the corpus most often. This

is not really surprising, since it is the most general word from the list and three of the

quoted dictionaries ( L D C E , C C E D , O E D ) in section 3.1.1 directly mention the phrase to

conceal/hide one's feelings in the definitions of senses of the verbs. In the B N C , the

feelings are in several cases modified by the adjectives true and real.

NWDTEL mentions the phrase hide one's fears.

72
 Apart from the general word feelings, the table lists eight concrete emotions which

can be loosely divided into three types: positive emotions, emotions of excitement and

surprise and negative emotions. The only positive emotion one tries to conceal/hide is

amusement. Since amusement appears only once with conceal and thrice with hide, it can

be argued that this collocation is not typical for neither of the verbs. From the emotions

of excitement, surprise is the most frequent. Surprise is also the most frequent emotion

collocating with both verbs altogether. Considering the words for negative emotions, both

verbs appear relatively often with disappointment. O n the other hand, embarrassment and

fear collocate more strongly with hide. Since distress as an object of conceal and hide

appears in both cases less than five times in the B N C , it can be said that it is not

characteristic for neither of the verbs. In general, it can be claimed that both from the set

of words for emotions that collocate with both conceal and hide, words for negative

emotions prevail. Arguably, this might imply that people w i l l conceal/hide their feelings

when they are feeling bad rather than when they are happy. O n the other hand, they w i l l

conceal/hide their amusement, when it is malicious as for instance in ( H H B ) .

The B N C shows that apart from emotions, conceal and hide can also occur with

the object smile. Since smile can be perceived as a bodily reaction to an emotion or an

impulse, it is discussed separately from objects - emotions. Table 10 shows how many

times does conceal/hide + smile appear in the corpora. O n the right, a pair of example

sentences is given.

Table 10 - Objects of conceal and hide: bodily reaction

BNC conceal hide Example sentences

objects frequency M e r r i l l concealed a smile as Sam groaned,
BNC COCA BNC COCA but Anna was already striding ahead, her
camera trained on the peacock which
smile chose that moment to display. ( H A 7 )
1 25 24 152
It was a struggle to hide her smile as he
fulfilled her expectations. ( G V P )

73
 In the B N C as well as i n C O C A , smile occurs more frequently with hide than

conceal. The only instance of conceal a smile is taken from fiction, a book A Warning of

Magic by Kingston Kate. The concordance data also suggests that it often takes an effort

to hide a smile, as it is demonstrated in ( G V P ) . In the sentence, a woman struggles to hide

her smile, which suggests that it requires self-control. Expressions, such as to be unable

to hide a smile, he/she can hardly hide a smile (smiles), it was difficult/hard to hide a

smile appear several times in the corpus.

Apart from emotions and a bodily reaction, conceal and hide tend to collocate in

the B N C with abstract concepts: fact, identity and truth. Conceal and hide are used with

these words in the sense 'to keep secret'.

Table 11 - Objects of conceal and hide: abstract concepts

BNC conceal hide Example sentences

objects frequency Therefore, they try to conceal the fact that
BNC COCA BNC COCA they are talking to people, sometimes by
giving the impression through non-verbal
behaviour that they are issuing directions, or
by calling at their homes. ( A 5 Y )
The omission of a material fact only
involves an offence where that fact was
concealed with dishonest intention. (HJ5)
fact
45 84 60 327 For the pretence hides the fact that in this
case the point of law has not been served
but unavoidably deserved. (JXJ)
[... ] this fact is hidden through the use of
titles which purport to be describing work in
general and the worker irrespective of
gender. ( E B R )
Despite one outburst from John Heard,
there's no attempt to explore another sinister
possibilitythat all men conceal their true
identity 12 144 4 136
identity in order to live up to the modern
woman's expectation of her 'dream man'.
(AHG)

74
 The mysterious disguise hid the identity of
the figure, but could not conceal that it only
had one arm. ( H T Y )
This was also the reality of the covert
world, fuelled by information others did not
know relayed by carriers whose real identity
was hidden; [...1 ( A D L )
If his lips touched hers she'd never be able
to conceal the truth - that her love was still
there in spite of his hatred for her. (JY4)
It was the respondents' task to investigate
'what was the true financial position of
Atlantic at the time of its acquisition and, i f
it was different from the way it was
represented, how and why the truth was
truth 5 24 14 145
concealed ( F D K )
Y o u needn't try to hide the truth from me,
boy, I know all about your mother. ( E V G )
A l l e n Watkins used to say that there was a
core of truth hidden in the heart of all folk
tales and legends i f we can only find it
amongst the accumulations which have
occurred over time [...]. ( B M T )

The table shows that hide a fact is by far the most frequent collocation. A s the

example sentences imply, conceal/hide in connection with fact is commonly used both in

active and passive voice, depending on whether the subject is known or relevant to the

context. In most cases, conceal/hide + fact is followed by a that-clause, as in ( A 5 Y ) or

(JXJ).

Identity, on the other hand, occurs more often with conceal. A s the W N D S

suggests, when a person conceals something it is often an intentional act. The use of

conceal with one's identity implies that it was concealed/hidden intentionally, carefully

and on purpose. Again, both verbs occur with identity in both active and passive voice. It

is worthwhile to point out that even though hide is considerably more frequent in C O C A ,

identity still collocates more frequently with conceal. For that reason, it can be assumed

that identity is typically used with conceal. R H W U D states as one of the senses of conceal

'to conceal one's identity by using a false name'. However, the corpora show that people

75
conceal their identity not only by using a false name, but also by changing one's

appearance or voice.

The phase to conceal/hide the truth appears in the B N C either by itself as in ( J Y X )

or followed by the preposition from in the phrase to conceal/hide the truth from sb ( E V G )

or followed by about in conceal/hide the truth about sth.

A s it was already noted, even though the B N C is a very useful tool for the actual

language use analysis, the results it brings may prove to be misleading to some degree,

due to its limited size.

3.2.3.2 Objects of conceal

The B N C states sixteen objects which collocate with conceal. These objects can

again be divided into several semantic groups. L i k e in the previous section, conceal

collocates with nouns, which represent emotions, a bodily reaction and abstract concepts.

Table 12 - Objects of conceal: emotions

BNC frequency Example sentences

BNC COCA He reached up in the darkness to take hold of her face
satisfaction and bring it down to his mouth, glad that the murk
4 1
concealed the satisfaction he wore. ( C R E )
How much one incident, however, affected the course of
Leapor's employment should not be over-estimated
annoyance 25
1 3
especially i f Leapor concealed her immediate
annoyance. ( A N 4 )
[...]Petain never made an effort to conceal the contempt
of the Third Republic that he had acquired early in his
contempt 3 12 career. (K91)
The contempt was less concealed now, and Alyssia
looked at him with loathing. (H8H)
A l l were merely delaying tactics designed to conceal the
distaste 3 4 basic French distaste for West German rearmament and
the weakness of French governments. ( C L R )
This 'return to the sources' discovers either that such
horror 2 4
primitive celebrations are entirely divorced from modern

25
Whereas in the BNC annoyance is collocates more frequently with conceal, CIDE mentions the
collocation hide one's annoyance. In COCA, annoyance was found to collocate more frequently with
hide as well, by 17 instances of hide one's annoyance to 3 of conceal one's annoyance.

76
 sexuality, or that they always concealed a deathly
horror. ( A 6 B )
He knew that shock, grief, trauma took people in
impatience 2 4 different ways, and i f this bizarre opening was helping
her, he could conceal his impatience. (CJF)
The mating instinct allied to fear of loneliness was an
irritation 3 1 irresistible combination, concluded the sergeant, gazing
round the pub to conceal his irritation. (G1W)

According he B N C , seven words for emotions collocate with conceal. Noticeably,

only one of the emotions is generally positive. Conceal annoyance and conceal irritation

have similar meanings. Both phrases suggest that one is trying to hide that he or she is

angry and/or displeased. In the corpus, contempt occurs frequently with words which

suggest unwillingness or inability of concealing the emotion. In the example (K91), the

subject "never made an effort to conceal the contempt". Another sentence offers the

expression "barely conceals his contempt" (K2F). Even in (H8H) is implied that the

subject was unwilling or unable to conceal her contempt, because it was "less concealed".

Similar expression to contempt is distaste, because both express a kind of dislike.

Table 13 presents the conceal collocating with a word for a bodily reaction.

Table 13 - Objects of conceal: bodily reaction

BNC frequency Example sentences

BNC COCA He concealed a yawn. ( F R C )
yawn
3 3

The B N C presents the collocation conceal a yawn. People conceal a yawn when

they cover their mouths (e.g. with a hand) when they yawn in public. In one case, the

phrase to conceal a yawn is modified by the adverb politely, which implies it is an act of

politeness. C O C A , on the other hand, states only one occurrence of conceal a yawn in

contrast to five occurrences of hide a yawn. It can be concluded that both options are

possible, but neither of them is very frequent in the corpora.

77
 Notably, according to the B N C , conceal does not typically collocate with concrete

objects. Conversely, it rather tends to appear in the environment of abstract concepts. The

corpus identifies five of them.

Table 14 - Objects of conceal: abstract concepts

BNC frequency Example sentences

BNC COCA She made no attempt to conceal her appealing expanse of
expanse
2 0 breast. ( H G S )
The move brought into the open the so-called"
Saddamgate" scandal, the rumbling allegations of which
extent 5 14 centred upon the charge that the Bush government
had concealed that extent of its illegal support for
Saddam Hussein prior to August 1990. ( H L M )
The Greeks at least did not make any attempt to conceal
ignorance 2 4
their ignorance of Latin. (HOK)
He was the facade which concealed the realities of
reality 6 14
British power in Egypt. (J 10)
M u c h of the evidence we have presented in this section is
based on averages which do, of course, conceal great
variation 13 3
variations between different groups within the population.
(F95)

To conceal expanse of sth appears twice in the B N C . However, both instances

come from the same source, an excerpt from a book Hidden Flames, written by Elizabeth

Bailey. In both cases, expanse is related to a woman's bosom as in (HGS). In C O C A , the

verb conceal in connection to expanse does not appear. Therefore, expanse cannot be

considered a typical collocate of conceal.

Extent is used with conceal in the sense of 'to keep secret'. One may conceal

either an extent of something or an extent to which something happens. One conceals, for

example, the extent of illegal support or prosperity.

One conceals his or her ignorance of something, meaning that one 'keeps his or

her lack of some knowledge or information secret' but one can also conceal one's

78
ignorance behind something (a poise) and thus prevent others from revealing his lack of

knowledge.

3.2.3.3 Objects of hide

The object collocates of hide can again be divided into semantic groups. Hide

collocates with emotions, a bodily reaction, abstract concepts, concrete objects and a

place.

Table 14 - Objects of hide: emotions

BNC frequency Example sentences

BNC COCA I shall have to hide my emotions better, she decided.
emotion
8 69 (JYO)
It was the way she hid the hurt inside herself, too proud to
hurt 6 1
shew one iota of what she was feeling. ( E V C )

The B N C states only two emotions as objects of hide. The concordance data

suggests that hiding one's emotion(s) is always an intentional act, and one must usually

make an effort, since in the phrase occurs with words such as manage, try or must. (JYO)

demonstrates this notion, since the phrase "hide my emotions better" implies that the

person w i l l need to make more effort, or she w i l l have to try harder to hide her emotion.

In C O C A , emotion appears fourteen times as an object of conceal, however hide one's

emotion(s) is still significantly more frequent in the corpus.

The expression hide the hurt appears i n the B N C six times. Mostly, it occurs in

fiction and exclusively in works of women writers. ( E V C ) is taken from Pamela Bennets

romantic fiction Topaz (1988). Other works i n which hide the/one's hurt appear include

Driven by Love by Kristy M c C a l l u m or His Woman by Jessica Steel. Interestingly,

according to the B N C , it is exclusively women who hide their hurt, always deliberately

and usually with a difficulty, since the expression appears in phrases such as: "fighting to

hide her hurt" (JY1), "tried to hide her hurt" ( H G T ) and similar. In C O C A , hide one's

79
hurt occurs only once. Conceal one's hurt appears neither in the B N C nor in C O C A .

Therefor it can be said that such collocation is rather uncommon.

Table 15 - Objects of hide: bodily reaction

BNC frequency Example sentences

BNC COCA Hari quickly moved to the foot of the stairs, her head bent
blush
7 10 to hide the blush that warmed her cheeks. ( C K D )

In the B N C , hide collocates with blush, which is a bodily reaction to an emotion

or an impulse. In the corpus, blush in connection to hide, appear both in singular and

plural number. Interestingly, the concordance data suggests that in five of seven cases, it

is the women, who hide their blush/blushes. Hide one's blushes is in the corpus always

connected to hiding a particular emotion, usually embarrassment or modesty. A l l the

instances of the expression hide one's blush/blushes are found in prose, which suggest

that it is more typical for the domain of fiction.

Table 16 - Objects of hide: abstract objects

BNC frequency Example sentences

BNC COCA A n d all the time Gabriel lived with them, reverberating,
massive, and she and Hosanna hid their secret and said
secret nothing. ( C A 3 )
7 100
Almighty G o d , unto whom all hearts be open, all desires
known, and from whom no secrets are hid. ( A R G )
A n d although the Frankish nation was reasonably well
known to the Roman emperors in the fourth century, its
origin 6 11 origins are equally hidden in myth. (HYO)
The elegant Georgian facade of this small hotel hides its
earlier origins as a Tudor coaching inn. ( C J K )

Hide collocates with two words for abstract concepts in the sense 'keep secret':

secret and origin. Although in the B N C states only seven occurrences of hide a secret,

this collocation is very frequent in C O C A .

The corpora indicate that one may hide either origins of something or of someone,

or, one can hide one's own origins. The verb often collocates with origins in passive as

80
in (HYO). The example ( C J K ) demonstrates that unconscious objects can hide origins of

something as well.

In the B N C , hide collocates with words which represent real objects. A l l these

objects appear with hide in the sense of 'to withdraw or withhold from sight'.

Table 17 - Objects of hide: concrete objects

BNC frequency Example sentences

BNC COCA The problem for the police was that her body was hidden
in King's W o o d and the rucksack dumped 6 miles away at
Barnard Gate. ( K 1 X )
body
20 187 The girl was undeniably beautiful, and clearly knew it for
she was wearing no petticoat and a diaphanous dress of
pale gold that did little to hide her body. ( C M P )
[...] But despite its bland style, it hides a time bomb for
bomb 1 43
Britain, for the reports are on southern Africa. ( A M 5 )
'Do you know where he hides the g u n ? (H86)
gun 26
7 61 'He must know more than that,' protested Owen. 'Where
the guns were hidden, for a start.' (J10)
Several times he went back to the spot where he had
hidden the sack as though unable to believe it had gone.
(BMX)
sack 6 2
A l l e n had been interested in the sack; she had seen him
stooping where the sack was hidden and he had been
doing something with it. ( B M X )
For a boss, in fact, he was a very human man, who had
tear 11 61 hardly tried to hide the tears behind his eyes as he had
stepped into the Mercedes earlier. ( H W A )
'I was in Flint's ship when he and six seamen hid the
treasure 2 51
treasure,' he said. (FSJ)

Unlike conceal, hide collocates more often with concrete nouns. The highest

number of occurrences scores the noun body. Hide a body occurs in the B N C mainly in

two unrelated contexts. One of them is connected to the act of murder, in which a

murderer hides a body of his victim so that it cannot be seen or found, as in the example

( K 1 X ) from the table. In the second context, hide one's body means to cover one's body

2 6
RHWUD mentions the collocation conceal a gun. In COCA, this collocation appears 17 times. This
leads to the conclusion, that even though hide a gun is more common in everyday use English, conceal a
gun is still relatively common. It can be further speculated, that since conceal is considered more formal
than hide, conceal a gun may appear more frequently in text-types, in which formal languages is required
(newspapers, news broadcast, legal texts, etc.)

81
(for instance by putting on/wearing some clothes or less revealing clothes) so that naked

skin cannot be not seen. It is worth noting that in all cases in which hide one's body is

used in this context, it is exclusively in connection to women.

According to the B N C , gun collocates usually with hide but not conceal, which is

in contradiction with the information found in R H W U D , which mentions the following

example: "He concealed the gun under his coat." Therefore, conceal in combination with

the object gun was searched for in C O C A , which offered 17 occurrences. Even though,

gun appears more frequently as subject of hide, it occurs with conceal as well.

To hide the/one's tears appears eleven times in the corpus, of which three times a

person turns away to hide the tears. In other cases, people hide their tears behind sth or

the way they hide the tears is not mentioned.

Table 18 - Objects of hide: place

BNC freq. Example sentence

BNC COCA So I spent a long time trying to hide the place. (G07)
place
1 1

According to the B N C , hide does not often frequently collocate with the noun

place as its object. Interestingly however, place often occurs with two adjectives derived

from the verb. The expression hiding place, 'place where something can be hidden',

appears in the corpus 59 times out of which it appears 32 times in plural as hiding places.

In C O C A , hiding place appears more than 700 times, which suggests that this collocation

is commonly used in English. The expression hidden place appears in the B N C 5 times

(four times in the plural) and in C O C A 37 times. In comparison with hiding place, hidden

place appears significantly less often, but the collocation is still worth mentioning. Since

the adjective hiding nor hidden are not of concern to the topic of this thesis, they w i l l not

be discussed into greater detail. Nevertheless, they deserve at least a brief mention, since

the words are closely related. Lastly, it should also be mentioned that the collocation place

82
to hide, meaning 'a place where someone or something can or wants to hide', appears

more than 300 times in C O C A .

3.2.4 Collocation: modifiers

This section seeks to examine the adverbs that modify the verbs conceal and hide.

The B N C results are then again compared with the data from C O C A . First are examined

the modifiers of both hide and conceal (table 19-20), then the modifiers which collocate

only with conceal (table 21-23), and finally the modifiers which collocate only with hide

(table 24-25).

3.2.4.1 Modifiers of conceal and hide

In the B N C , both verbs collocate with two adverbs of manner , which say 27

something about the way the hiding/concealing is done.

Table 19 - Modifiers of conceal and hide: adverbs of manner

BNC conceal hide Example sentences

BNC COCA BNC COCA Sometimes a person may fail to see his
own assumptions and sometimes he w i l l
deliberately conceal them. ( C 8 V )
'It looks as i f players are hiding, but they
don't hide deliberately. (K54)
deliberately They want to read between the lines, to
6 11 3 18
worm their way into the subtext and
assumptions behind the presented image,
and to discover the practices that are
accidentally or deliberately hidden to
view. ( A M 4 )
She carefully concealed her satisfaction at
this first use of the word 'our' (AP7)
carefully 3 7 4 25 Then he took out his hidden box and very
carefully hid all the watches and the
jewellery beneath his clothes. ( F R K )

27
Adverbs of manner are used to describe the circumstances or the way in which something happens or is
done. {Collin's CobuildEnglish Grammar; 1990: 291)

83
 The table shows that both conceal and hide can be modified by two adverbs of

manner: deliberately and carefully. In case of deliberately, the adverb occurs more

frequently with conceal which once more confirms the information mentioned in some

of the dictionaries of the English language, e.g. N W D S that conceal, ordinarily implies

intention. The corpus data also suggest that deliberately conceal is more frequently

connected to abstract concepts such as thoughts, facts, information, rights or origins.

Deliberately hide takes abstract concepts as well, but the example (K54) suggests that it

collocates with concrete objects as well.

Conceal and hide both occur with carefully, the only difference can again be seen

in the tendencies of conceal to collocate with abstract nouns, whereas hide collocates

slightly more with concrete nouns. O n the other hand, it needs to be emphasized that the

overall number of occurrences of the verbs with the adverbs of manner is too small to

offer a conclusive result. In C O C A , hide occurs more often with both adverbs.

Nevertheless, it is good to bear in mind that hide is in C O C A about seven times more

frequent than conceal, which means that higher occurrence of hide with any modifier in

C O C A is not surprising. However, considering the words separately, according to C O C A

as well as the B N C , hide occurs more typically with the adverb carefully than with

deliberately, while for conceal the opposite is true.

Conceal and hide are also modified by the adverbs of degree . 28

Table 20 - Modifiers of conceal and hide: adverbs of degree

BNC conceal hide Example sentences

BNC COCA BNC COCA In the process of reflecting on the
history of the game, Hampden
barely Babylon can barely conceal a loathing
6 36 3 28
for our near and dear neighbours
England. (B1L)

28
Adverbs of degree give the information about the extent or degree to which something is done.
{Collin's Cobuild English Grammar; 1990: 293)

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 hind all the distinct and conflicting
perspectives described earlier,
underneath all the rhetoric about
'working together', are barely hidden
power and status differentials. ( C R W )
The rich could afford stone memorials,
exquisitely carved, but the graves of
the poor were not even properly dug,
shallow holes which scarcely
scarcely 2 3 2 5 concealed their dead, left open to
scavenging dogs and other creatures.
(BMN)
The mist scarcely hid them now.
(JYE)
East of Swansea Bay, folding in the
Vale of Glamorgan is gentler and
partly concealed by Mesozoic
partly 9 7 13 17 rocks. (B2J)
A s he was partly hidden by the
foliage she could not see his face
clearly. (BOB)
They came back on the Northern Line,
a tall handsome man in a long
overcoat and a man whose face was
mostly 2 5 3 30
mostly hidden by an upturned collar
and a hat pulled well down. ( E D N )

He too was covered in mud and green

dirt, but the features that they almost
concealed were boyishly pleasant.
almost 3 1 9 35 (CKX)
The stranger's face was almost hidden
by a leather cap tied on with a strip of
canvas. ( H T N )
The end result is that the burrow with
its precious egg and living food supply
is completely concealed. (CJ3)
In seconds he was completely hidden,
his heart pounding against his ribs and
completely 8 15 23 72 the fingers of his uninjured hand still
grasping his precious newspaper.
(ACW)
[...] his breast was completely hidden
from view by the coral beads
encircling his neck. ( F B A )

In the B N C , both conceal and hide occur frequently modified by six adverbs of

degree which an object (a thing, a person or an emotion and so on) can be concealed.

85
Barely is the only adverb of degree that collocates more typically with conceal than hide.

The B N C shows that what people barely conceal or hide are usually emotions

{displeasure, amusement, satisfaction or irritation, etc.) or abstract objects {state, fling).

Modified by barely, the verbs are used in the sense 'keep secret'. Interestingly, although

barely and scarcely are synonyms, scarcely does not often collocate with any of the verbs.

Partly, mostly, almost are used with conceal and hide in the sense 'prevent from

being seen or noticed'. They are frequently followed by the preposition by, in the phrase

in passive: sth is partly/mostly/almost concealed/hidden try sth as in (B2B), (BOB), ( E D N )

or ( H T N ) .

Completely collocates more often with hide. It commonly appears in the phrases:

to hide sth completely from sb or sth (see ( F B A ) ) and to hide sth completely by sth. These

phrases are usually used in the sense 'to obstruct from view or to prevent from being

seen'.

3.2.4.2 Modifiers of conceal

Conceal is in the B N C modified by three categories of adverbs: adverbs of

frequency, manner and degree.

Table 21 - Modifiers of conceal: adverbs of frequency

BNC frequency Example sentences

BNC COCA In spite of the increasing stiffness in the handling of the
verse, Wordsworth continued to experiment with varied
frequently stanza forms, and also, I feel, with language: but the
3 2
aureate diction frequently conceals the tritest sentiments.
(CAW)

According to the B N C , conceal is modified by a single adverb of frequency, i.e.

frequently. The concordance data suggests that conceal + frequently tend to collocate

with abstract objects: e.g. sentiment, inadequacies or uniformity.

86
Table 22 - Modifiers of conceal: adverbs of manner

BNC frequency Example sentences

BNC COCA However, the period design features cleverly conceal a
wealth of high tech services. ( H X 4 )
cleverly The shop assistant may glimpse the bulges that we
2 2 conceal so cleverly, and the beauty parlour attendant
get a close-up of nasty blackheads and facial hair.
(CNN)
Every self-respecting ideology develops its own
complex defence mechanisms which cunningly
cunningly 2 0 conceal, or paper over, the glaring discrepancies and
inconsistences which inevitably arise between what
ought to happen and what actually does. (CSO)
Sometimes a person may fail to see his own
deliberately 6 9 assumptions and sometimes he w i l l
deliberately conceal them. ( C 8 V )
[...] i f a person (including as an adviser): makes a
statement, promise or forecast which he knows to be
dishonestly 2 0
misleading, false or deceptive or dishonestly conceals
any material facts; [...] (HJ5)

It may serve today as a living protest against the

cheapening, the misunderstanding, the betrayal of
easily 4 21 education which programmes of expansion and
popular education policies can so easily conceal.
(A69)
The dilapidation and solitude of the house effectively
effectively 4 10 concealed the commerce that was conducted within its
walls. (GW2)
F E W men in public life have so successfully
concealed their activities and provoked such
successfully 6 4
controversy and mystery as Roland 'Tiny' Rowland.
(HJ4)

Conceal collocates with seven adverbs of manner. The adverbs cleverly and

cunningly are related in meaning and suggest that something is hidden effectively and by

using one's wit. These adverbs, however, cannot be considered typical collocates of the

verb, since they occur only few a times in the corpora.

People deliberately conceal something by keeping it secret, often by denying,

lying or by refusing to divulge. Among the objects one deliberately conceals belong

danger, evidence, fact, information, origin and sins. In most of the cases, the objects are

abstract. Similarly, dishonestly conceal is used in the sense 'to keep secret, especially by

87
cheating or lying to harm someone'. The object found in both instances of the collocation

is fact. The collocations deliberately conceal and dishonestly conceal appear most

frequently in written books and periodicals, mainly in text-types concerning law and

commerce.

When something is easily concealed, little or no effort is needed for the action. In

the corpora, this expression appears in the B N C mostly in passive, but occasionally even

in the active voice as it is shown in (A69). Easily + conceal collocates with abstract as

well as concrete objects.

The adverbs effectively and successfully in connection with conceal say that

something or someone is hidden well, not likely to be discovered. The adverb effectively

corresponds with the premise that conceal can entail effective hiding. In contrast to the

adverb easily, effectively and completely collocate mostly with conceal in the active voice.

Conceal is also modified by two adverbs of degree.

Table 23 - Modifiers of conceal: adverbs of degree

frequency
BNC Example sentences
BNC COCA
More disappointed than she was prepared to admit, Joan
entirely 4 4
could not entirely conceal her chagrin. ( C C D )
He made her feel naked anyway, despite the fact that there
was nothing transparent about tonight's outfit and even its
fully 3 2
low round neckline fully concealed her breasts while
revealing their shapely swell. (H9L)

Conceal collocates with two adverbs of degree: entirely and fully, which can be

considered synonyms. They say that something was concealed completely, to the full

extent or degree. It has already been said that conceal implies effective hiding ( W N D S :

401). Since entirely and fully imply such effectiveness, it could be the reason why they

collocate with conceal more often than other adverbs which do not (e.g. quickly, hastily,

88
suddenly). Nevertheless, none of the collocations can be marked as typical, because in

both cases the number of occurrences is rather small.

To conclude, conceal collocates primarily with three types of adverbs: adverbs of

frequency, manner and degree. Out of these categories, adverbs of manner modify

conceal most often.

3.2.4.3 Modifiers of hide

Hide is modified by three adverbs of manner.

Table 24 - Modifiers of hide: adverbs of manner

Modifiers of hide
frequency
BNC Example sentences
BNC COCA
Satisfied that she was safely hidden from view, Benny
safely 4 27 began swiftly examining the drums for labels that might
give her a clue as to what was in them. (FSR)
War has brought to the surface things that are normally
normally 3 5
hidden. ( A B H )
Peter quickly hid the chicken leg he was eating and
quickly 5 27
apologised. ( E E L )

Hide tends to collocate with several adverbs of degree, which determine, to what

extent or how well is someone or something hidden. Hide something safely means 'to put

in a place where it is absolutely safe from being seen or discovered'. When people hide

safely, it is impossible for others to see or find them. Usually, this collocation is used with

either people or concrete objects.

Normally collocates with hide exclusively in passive: i f something or someone is

normally hidden, it is usual for it to be hidden and it is hidden for most of the time. To

such normally hidden entities belong abstract objects such as thoughts, but also concrete

89
objects such as bacteria. The small number of occurrences of the collocation in both

corpora however suggests that this expression is not very common.

Hide quickly means to 'immediately put away from sight, usually on impulse'. In

most of the cases, the object is concrete. According to the corpora, one can quickly hide

his or her tears, wounds, money, cigarettes, but also one can quickly hide oneself or: hide

behind something.

According to the B N C , hide is like frequently modified by the adverbs of degree.

Table 25 - Modifiers of hide: adverbs of degree

Modifiers of hide
BNC frequency Example sentences
BNC COCA
hardly
8 1 This evening she could hardly hide her delight. (K25)
A long porch partially hid the squat front door, its arched
partially 7 40 cover all over tangled creepers, the grass and pavings all
about it thick with weeds. ( H G V )
The villa location, largely hidden in undergrowth, is
largely 3 18
marked with a stone tablet erected by the Club.
Some things, such as whether the number of stars is odd
totally 29
4 6
or even, are totally hidden; [...]
But i f there are any duck here today they are well hidden
in the soft rush which fringes the pools. (CRJ)
well 3 0
30 248 Rostov thought that it hid well the bitterness which he
felt towards Irina's k i n for their concerted opposition to
her marriage, [...] (FSE)

Hardly hide appears eight times in the B N C , in contrast to only one instance in

C O C A . It can be found in context of some emotion {glee, delight, dislike), abstract object

{bias) or a bodily reaction {smile). Most of the examples come from fiction, others are

from newspapers or spoken news reports.

Whereas both conceal and hide frequently collocate with the adverb of degree

partly, according to the results from the B N C , semantically similar adverb partially is

29
Totally also appears as a modifier of hide in OED (online) in the expression A few seconds before the
sun was totally hid.
30
Well can be considered both an adverb of degree as well as manner. In the thesis, it is classified as an
adverb of degree, since hide sth well suggests 'hide something to such an extent or a degree, that nothing
of the object or a person can be seen or noticed'. However, well used as and adverb of manner can in that
context also mean 'cleverly, artfully, carefully'.

90
found only with hide. In C O C A , however, partially + conceal scores 20 hits. So, although

the collocation is not as frequent as in the case of hide, it does exist and is relatively

common.

Well is, according to the corpora, the most frequent modifier of hide. Typically, it

appears in the passive (sth is well hidden). It collocates with both abstract and concrete

objects. Occasionally, hide sth well is followed by the preposition in or from or by.

In sum, hide is modified by two types of adverbs: adverbs of manner and adverbs of

degree.

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4 Summary
The aim of dictionary analysis was to compare the conceptual meanings of the

verbs conceal and hide. In the first part of the analysis, the verbs were consulted in seven

selected dictionaries of the English language. The second part focused on examining the

verbs in the English thesauri and the dictionaries of synonyms.

In the dictionaries, conceal and hide share from one up to three senses. Some

dictionaries ( L D C E , O E D ) provide detailed entries, which distinguished between slight

nuances in meaning, while other dictionaries ( R H W U D , N W D T E L ) are more general and

put together senses which are elsewhere treated separately. The formulation of these

senses differs from dictionary to dictionary, yet the core of the senses remains the same.

Hide can be interchanged with conceal in the sense 'withhold or withdraw from sight or

observation' as well as i n the sense 'keep something {information, intentions, emotions,

etc.) secret'. In five dictionaries, conceal shares all its senses with hide, while hide has

some additional senses. Dictionaries mention only two senses of conceal, which the verb

does not share with hide. O E D (online) states that conceal is used in the sense 'to hide

(the flavour, taste, smell) of something; to make imperceptible'. R H W U D says that

conceal is uniquely used in the sense 'to conceal one's identity by using a false name'.

On the other hand, all the dictionaries state some specific senses of hide, in which

conceal is not used. In these senses, hide is usually used as an intransitive verb. A s unique

sense of hide N O D E mentions 'conceal oneself and hide behind sth or sb, meaning 'to

protect oneself from criticism or punishment, especially in a way considered cowardly or

unethical'. L D C E states the phrases hide under sth, hide behind sth and hide in sth, hide

sbfrom sb or sth, however, other dictionaries show that the phrase conceal sth from sb or

sth is also possible. C I D E states the saying don't hide your light under the bushel. C C E D

adds the collocation hide one's face, and O E D mentions the phrasal verbs hide away and

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hide up and hide out, together with the expressions to hide one's face/ears/head, and the

obsolete sense of hide, which means 'to conceal as to shield or protect'. N W D T E L and

R H W U D both state that hide differs from conceal in that can be used without an object.

So far, it might seem that the difference between the words lies in the fact that

whereas hide may or may not take an object, conceal always requires an object. However,

O E D disproves this statement, since it states that, like hide, conceal can be used

intransitively in the sense 'to hide oneself, although this use is now rare and obsolete. It

further states that conceal can be used intransitively in the sense 'to keep something from

the knowledge or observation of others'. Otherwise, the dictionaries suggest that conceal

and hide are often interchangeable, which is supported by the fact that the dictionaries

explain some senses of the verbs by circular definitions, analogous to conceal is to hide

and hide is conceal.

Nevertheless, there are some nuances between the verbs. For instance, two of the

quoted dictionaries state that conceal is considered formal, while no such information

appears about hide. According to C C E D , hide is also slightly more frequent than conceal,

but in O E D (online) the verbs are used similarly often. This information, however, is in

contradiction with the results from the corpus analysis, which show that hide is

substantially more frequent than conceal. {Hide is about three times more frequent than

conceal in the B N C , and up to seven times more frequent in C O C A ) Lastly, the

dictionaries mention the difference in etymology of the verbs. Hide is of West Germanic

origin and appears in O l d English before 900, while conceal is a borrowed word from

Old French {conselen) and first appears in Middle English in the late 13 century.
th

Examining the words in thesauri and the dictionaries of synonyms brought the

following results. F W S H S A P states hide to be more general than conceal. It states that a

thing may be hidden on purpose or by mistake and even unconscious objects may hide

93
other something. Yet, when people conceal something, they do it more often

intentionally. According to the book, one hides his or her face rather in abstraction or to

hide an emotion, one intentionally conceals his or her face when they fear recognition.

W N D S adds that although hide and conceal are often interchangeable, conceal might

imply effective hiding, or a refusal to divulge.

Hide and conceal share many common synonyms. Some of the most common in

the dictionaries are: bury, camouflage, cover, cloak, disguise, screen, secrete and veil.

Several of the synonyms, however, share only one sense with the synonymous verbs,

which means that they are only sense-synonyms (screen, occult, disguise). Others are

only near-synonyms, for they either are more general or more specific, or they differ

register, connotation or dialect, etc. (stash, bush up, ensconce).

A s the common antonym of both hide and conceal the thesauri and dictionaries

of synonyms state reveal. Reveal opposes both senses which conceal and hide share, i.e.

'keep secret' and 'prevent from being seen'. Other proposed antonyms are show and

display, these, however, oppose conceal and hide only in some of their senses. Therefore,

it might be suitable to treat them rather as of contrasted words.

The corpus analysis consisted four parts. The first part examined the frequencies

of the verbs, in which they appear in the B N C and C O C A . In the B N C , hide was found

to occur almost three times more often than conceal. In C O C A , hide is even up to seven

times more frequent than hide. These data contradict the frequency information found in

C C E D and O E D (online). C C E D suggests that hide is only slightly more frequent than

conceal, while O E D (online) puts the words into the same frequency band.

In the second part of the corpus analysis, the text-types in which the words appear

in the corpora were discussed. The B N C showed that both words occur typically appear

in fiction and in periodicals. Unlike conceal, hide was often represented i n the spoken

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text-types. The B N C distinguishes several domains for written corpus text. Conceal and

hide typically occur in the domain of imaginative texts. Conceal also frequently appears

in informative texts concerning the arts and science. Hide appears in informative texts

less often than in fiction.

COCA presents five categories of text types: spoken, fiction, magazine,

newspaper and academic. Within these categories, conceal occurs most frequently in

fiction, but it also commonly appears in academic texts and magazine, which supports the

notion that conceal is somewhat formal.

The words which associate with conceal and hide help to constitute a part of their

meaning. Therefore, the corpus analysis focused on the collocational behaviour of

conceal and hide. First, it examined the objects that collocate with both verbs as they

appear in the B N C . Consequently, the frequencies of the collocations were compared with

the data obtained from C O C A . It turned out that the objects from the B N C could smoothly

be divided into four groups of semantically related words. These were: "concrete objects",

"emotions", "bodily reactions" and "abstract concepts".

Conceal and hide collocate with one concrete object, i.e. face. The collocation

hide one's face is, however, considerably more frequent in both corpora than conceal

one's face. The corpora data also confirms the information, appearing in F W S H S A P ,

since that one hides his or her face from multiple reasons (from grief or abstraction), yet

one conceals his or her face especially when they want to avoid being recognized.

In the B N C , conceal and hide often appear in the sense 'keep sth secret' in

connection to some emotion. The most frequent expression is to conceal/hide one's

feelings. However, only one of the concrete emotions from the list can be classified as

generally positive (amusement). According to the corpora, one usually hides feelings of

excitement or negative emotions. Conceal and hide also collocate with the word smile,

95
which can be seen as a bodily reaction to and emotional impulse. The collocation hide

one's smile is again more frequent than the analogous expression with conceal. Finally,

the verbs share three objects representing abstract concepts: fact, identity and truth. The

concept identity is the only one that collocates more frequently with conceal than with

hide.

The objects, which in the B N C collocate only with conceal but not hide, can be

again split into three groups: "emotions", "bodily reactions" and "abstract concepts". The

emotions which collocate with conceal are once more mostly negative (annoyance,

contempt, distaste). The only positive emotion one conceals is satisfaction. The corpora

mention the collocation conceal one's yawn, which is, however, quite infrequent. Further

it states five abstract concepts which collocate with conceal. Notable is the noun extent,

which appears with conceal mainly in to phrases: to conceal an extent of something or to

which something happens.

L i k e conceal, hide collocates with emotions, a bodily reaction and abstract

concepts. Apart from those, however, hide collocates with words which represent

concrete objects and with the word "place."

In contrast to conceal, hide alone collocates with fewer emotions. In fact, the B N C

states only two words: emotion (mostly in plural as emotions) and hurt, whereas hurt

appears only in the B N C , exclusively in romantic fiction, in works by women writers.

Hide collocates with the word blush (also in plural as blushes), which stands for a bodily

reaction caused by embarrassment or modesty. This collocation was found mainly in

fiction. In the B N C , hide collocates with two abstract concepts: secret and origin. It is

used with words for concrete objects: body, bomb, gun, sack, tear, and treasure in the

sense 'withdraw or withhold from sight'. The collocation hide one's body can have two

meanings. Either someone (often a murderer) disposes of a dead body (a corpse) by

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covering the body with something, or putting it in a place, where it cannot be easily found,

or a person covers one's own body with something (e.g. clothes) in order to prevent their

naked skin from being seen. Noticeably, hide quite often collocates with words such as

body, gun, bomb which are generally connected to some act of violence. It also collocates

with the word place, however, the phrases hiding place and a place to hide are more

typical.

Conceal and hide share several adverbs, which can modify the verbs. These

adverbs are of two types: adverbs of manner, adverbs of degree. Concerning the adverbs

of degree, barely is more typically used with conceal. Barely conceal sth is used in the

sense 'keep secret', often in relation to some emotions. Hide, on the other hand,

characteristically collocates with the adverb completely in the sense to obstruct from view

or to prevent from being seen', usually in relation to some concrete object. In the corpora,

the phrases commonly appear: hide sth completely by sth and hide sth completely from

sb.

The adverbs which collocate with conceal only are of three types: manner, degree

and frequency. Out of these, conceal collocates most strongly with successfully, which

supports the notion that conceal implies effective hiding.

Hide is typically modified by the adverb well. This collocation appears either in

passive (sth is well hidden) or less commonly also in active as hide sth well.

To sum up, conceal and hide are synonyms which can often be used

interchangeably. Some nuances in meaning can still be distinguished. Primarily, hide is

more general than conceal, and thus can be used in a broader range of contexts.

Consequently, hide is used more often than conceal, as the frequency data from the B N C

and C O C A suggests. Hide is commonly used intransitively, sometimes followed by the

conjunctions in, under, behind, whereas conceal typically takes an object. Hide also

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appears with a particle as a phrasal verb: hide away, hide behind, hide up, hide out, etc.

It also appears in idiomatic expressions: hide one's light under the bushel, hide one's

face, hide one's ears and hide one's head. Another difference is that conceal is considered

somewhat more formal. The reason for it may be found in the etymology of the verbs.

Other semantic difference between the verbs is that while hide may or may not suggest

intent, conceal is (as an act of people) usually intentional. Additionally, conceal may

suggest effective hiding or a refusal to divulge. According to the corpora, conceal tends

to collocate with abstract objects and emotions, while hide frequently collocates with

concrete objects as well. Both verbs are often modified by adverbs of manner and adverbs

of degree. However, whereas conceal is more often modified by the adverbs of manner,

hide more typically collocates with adverbs of degree.

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Conclusion
The purpose of this thesis was to provide a semantic analysis of the verbs conceal

and hide with the use of different approaches and methods. Since conceal and hide are

synonyms, their conceptual meanings are very similar. Yet, the verbs are not

interchangeable in all contexts, which shows that the verbs differ in some respects. The

thesis focused on finding the nuances between the meanings of the verbs.

This thesis is divided into five parts: introduction, theoretical part, analytical part,

summary and conclusion. The theoretical part introduces the necessary theoretical

background for the subsequent semantic analysis in the analytical part. The theoretical

part is composed of three chapters. In the first one, the key concepts of word meaning are

introduced. Among which are, for instance, discussed Leech's seven types of meaning,

the crucial semantic concepts of 'sense' and 'reference' as well as the notion of 'sense

relations' and 'semantic fields'. The second chapter is devoted to synonymy. It presents

several approaches to synonymy, distinguishes between its types and gives account for

some of methods by which synonymy can be tested. Last chapter focuses on collocation.

It presented several of its definitions and explained, what is meant by the term

'collocational restrictions'. Finally, the British National Corpus and Contemporary

Corpus of American English were briefly introduced.

The analytical part consisted of two main parts: dictionary analysis and corpus

analysis. In the former, conceal and hide were examined using various dictionaries and

thesauri of the English language. Dictionaries of English have shown that conceal and

hide are semantically very close and therefore can often be used interchangeably. The

words share two basic meanings: 'prevent from being seen or noticed' and 'keep secret'.

Nevertheless, they cannot be considered 'total synonyms', for some nuances in their

meanings can still be distinguished. Primarily, hide was revealed to be more general than

99
conceal, and thus it was found that it can be used in a broader range of contexts. The

dictionary analysis further showed that hide is commonly used intransitively, sometimes

followed by the conjunctions in, under, behind, whereas conceal typically takes an object.

Hide also appears with a particle as a phrasal verb: hide away, hide behind, hide up, hide

out, etc. It also appears in idiomatic expressions: hide one's light under the bushel, hide

one's face, hide one's ears and hide one's head. Another difference is that conceal is

considered somewhat more formal. The reason for it may be looked for in the etymology

of the verbs. The thesauri of the English language and the dictionaries of synonyms

provided yet further information about the semantic differences between the verbs. The

analysis showed that while hide may or may not suggest intent, conceal is (as an act of

people) usually intentional. Additionally, conceal may suggest effective hiding or a

refusal to divulge. Conceal and hide share many synonyms and related words. Those that

appear in most of the thesauri and dictionaries of synonyms are bury, camouflage, cover,

cloak, disguise, screen, secrete and veil. The words also share a common antonym reveal

and some contrasted words, for which show and display can be named.

According to the corpora, the objects that collocate with both conceal and hide

can be divided into four semantic groups: "concrete objects", "emotions", "bodily

reactions" and "abstract concepts". Whereas conceal alone collocate most frequently with

abstract objects {ignorance, reality, variation) and emotions {annoyance, contempt

distaste), hide frequently collocates with concrete objects {gun, body, bomb) as well.

Conceal is often modified by the adverbs of manner, out of which successfully is the most

typical, while hide more often collocates with adverbs of degree {partially, totally, well).

Although at the first sight, it might be hard to distinguish between the meanings

of conceal and hide, slight differences can be found in their conceptual meaning and their

actual language use.

100
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103
Czech résumé
Cílem této práce je provést sémantickou analýzu dvou anglických sloves conceal

a hide, za využití různých sémantických přístupů a metod. Přestože tato slovesa jsou

považována za konceptuálni synonyma, nelze je vzájemně zaměnit ve všech kontextech.

Proto se tato práce zaměřuje jak na hledání j e m n ý c h rozdílů v jejich významu, tak na

jejich skutečné j a z y k o v é užití. Jádro práce tvoří korpusová analýza, která zkoumá

kolokační chování synonym conceal a hide.

Práce je rozdělena do pěti částí: úvodu, teoretické části, analytické části, shrnutí a

závěru. Teoretická část poskytuje základní znalosti z oblasti sémantiky, jejichž

porozumění je nezbytné k následné analyse sloves. Dělí se na čtyři kapitoly. První

představuje klíčové pojmy týkající se ,významu slov' a typů ,významů'. Taktéž rozlišuje

mezi pojmy ,smysl' a ,význam' a pojednává o ,sémantických vztazích' a s nimi úzce

souvisejícím konceptem ,sémantických polí'. Druhá kapitola se zabývá synonymií.

Představuje několik přístupů k synonymii, různé druhy synonym a některé z metod, které

slouží k testování synonymie. Poslední kapitola definuje pojmy ,kolokace' a ,kolokační

omezení'. N a závěr stručně představuje Britský národní korpus a Korpus současné

americké angličtiny.

Analytická část se dělí na dvě kapitoly. První představuje slovníkovou analýzu

synonymních sloves za použití vybraných slovníků a thesaurů anglického jazyka, j a k o ž i

slovníků synonym. Druhá kapitola poskytuje korpusovou analýzu sloves conceal a hide.

Nejdříve zkoumá, jak často se tato slovesa v korpusech vyskytují, načež se zaměřuje na

rej střiky a typy textů, v nichž je lze obvykle nalézt. Poté studuje kolokační chování sloves,

tak že zkoumá, j aké předměty a rozvij ej icí větné členy se nacházejí v jejich okolí. Veškeré

sémantické rozdíly mezi slovesy jsou okomentovány ve shrnutí. Celá práce je poté

zrekapitulována v závěru.

104
English resume
The aim of this thesis is to provide a semantic analysis of two English verbs

conceal and hide, using various semantic approaches and methods. Although these verbs

are conceptual synonyms, they cannot be interchanged in all contexts. This work

examines the subtle differences in their semantic content as well as in the actual language

use. The core of the thesis presents a corpus analysis, which examines the collocational

behaviour of the verbs.

The thesis is divided into five parts: introduction, theoretical part, analytical part,

summary and conclusion. The theoretical part establishes the necessary theoretical

background which for the subsequent analysis. It is divided into four chapters. The first

chapter introduces the key concepts of 'word meaning'. It distinguishes between 'sense'

and 'reference' and discusses 'sense relations' and to them closely related 'sematic

fields'. The second chapter is devoted to synonymy. It introduces several approaches to

synonymy, distinct types of synonyms and some methods for testing synonymy. The last

chapter defines 'collocations' and 'collocational restriction. Finally, it briefly introduces

the British National Corpus and the Contemporary Corpus of American English.

The analytical part is divided into two chapters. The first one presents the

dictionary analysis of the synonymous verbs using selected dictionaries and thesauri of

the English language and dictionaries of synonyms. The second chapter offers the corpus

analysis of conceal and hide, which first examines the general frequencies of the verbs

and then it focuses on the registers and text-types in which the synonyms occur.

Afterwards, it studies the collocational behaviour of the verbs by looking at the objects

and modifiers which appear in the words' environment. A l l the identified semantic

differences between the verbs conceal and hide are commented on in the summary.

Finally, the thesis is then recapitulated in the conclusion.

105