A corpus-based study of English synonyms: hard, tough, and difficult

This corpus-based study investigates the similarities and differences among the English adjectives “hard”, “tough”, and “difficult” by analyzing their noun collocations and semantic preferences. Using data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), and online dictionaries, the study identified the top 30 noun collocates for each adjective, which were then analyzed and categorized into semantic fields. The findings revealed that while all three adjectives commonly collocate with nouns “time/s”, “decisions”, “choices”, “questions”, and “situations”, each adjective also exhibits different collocational patterns that reflect its unique usage. “Hard” shows the highest frequency of noun collocates, whereas “tough” and “difficult” have lower frequencies but form strong associations with specific nouns. For semantic preference, “hard” is mainly associated with physical and technical terms, "tough" strongly connects with descriptions of people and struggle, and "difficult" is preferred in cognitive and formal domains. Nonetheless, all three adjectives share certain semantic categories related to Abstract Concepts and Time. These collocational patterns and semantic preferences offer valuable insights that can enhance synonym selection and usage accuracy.