After last lecture, I have known how to make great use of corpora and learn English with new tools. And, this week's homework is to find out the differences between "big" and "large" by using corpus resource. As to me, it's really tough to distinguish the two similar words before. But now, I finally discover some differences between them. The following is what I define to organize them:
Big: to describe something abstractly or you are not quite sure of its exact amount, range or extent.
EX:controversy, client, city, art, adverture, event, issue, loser, personality, power, problem, role, success, winner, account.
Large: to describe, especially,an object physically, like volume and amounts. Or to say something which have particular size, like clothes, shoes, cups of drink, household appliances and so on.
EX: aircraft, amount, volume, chunk of, city, collection, screen, ship, crowds, family, fortune.
Because all the above is just my inference, please help me to revise it and share your ideas with me if you find anything wrong.
So are you saying that large is used to describe "physical nouns" but not "big"? How about a big house, a big car, a big building???
ReplyDeleteI think they still have many common usages, but sometimes there are some collocations making them have different meanings. So, the above in my article is how I define them when I want to use them to describe some particular nouns. All in all, it's really difficult for me to organize the two words exactly.
ReplyDeleteHope the discussion several weeks ago had helped you clarify some of your doubts.
ReplyDelete