School of Humanities G3, Bachelor‟s Course
English Linguistics Course Code: EN3103
Supervisor: Ibolya Maricic Credits: 15
Examiner. Maria Estling Vannestål Date: 27 May, 2009
Emotion adjectives
A corpus study of the use of terrified, petrified and horrified
in British and American English
Elin Hagström
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Abstract
For many non-native speakers of English it can be difficult to distinguish semantic
differences between near-synonyms. In order to create idiomatically correct sentences in a
language it is important to know which word to use in a specific context. This study deals
with the emotion adjectives terrified, petrified and horrified, which all refer to an emotion
of fear of something that can or will happen. The present research aims at exploring the
meanings of these adjectives, in American English and British English, and to discover
which words these adjectives tend to collocate with. To obtain data a British Corpus and an
American corpus were used with fiction and newspaper as subcorpora. A quantitative
method was used where the frequencies of terrified, petrified and horrified were counted.
Secondly, the most frequent left- and right-hand collocates were studied. Due to the variety
of collocations found, it was discovered that the meanings between the adjectives differ
somewhat. The literal meaning of petrified is to be hard as a stone while the non-literal
meaning is to be extremely afraid. The literal meanings of terrified and horrified are to be
very afraid, but unlike terrified, horrified also seems to refer to being shocked. It can be
stated that in accordance with how vague the adjective is in its meaning the more
frequently it is used, i.e. terrified is the most frequent adjective in all subcorpora and in
both varieties of English most frequently used while petrified is least frequently used.
Keywords: British National Corpus, collocate(s), collocation(s), Corpus of Contemporary
American English, emotion adjectives, horrified, near-synonyms, petrified, terrified.
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Aim .......................................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Scope ........................................................................................................................................ 2
2 Theoretical background ................................................................................................................ 2
2.1 Words and emotion .................................................................................................................. 2
2.2 Categorizing emotions and defining emotion concepts ........................................................... 3
2.3 The problematic distinction between literal meaning and non-literal meaning ....................... 5
3 Material and method ..................................................................................................................... 6
3.1 Material .................................................................................................................................... 6
3.1.1 Corpora, concordance and collocations ............................................................................ 7
3.2 Method ..................................................................................................................................... 8
3.3 Limitations and problems .................................................................................................... 9
4 Results ............................................................................................................................................ 9
4.1 Frequency............................................................................................................................... 10
4.1.1 Terrified .......................................................................................................................... 10
4.1.2 Petrified .......................................................................................................................... 11
4.1.3 Horrified ......................................................................................................................... 12
4.1.4 Comparisons of the frequencies of terrified, petrified and horrified .............................. 12
4.2 Collocations ........................................................................................................................... 13
4.2.1 Comparison of the collocations of terrified, petrified and horrified .............................. 23
4.3 Difference in meaning ........................................................................................................... 24
4.3.1 Terrified .......................................................................................................................... 25
4.3.2 Petrified .......................................................................................................................... 25
4.3.3 Horrified ......................................................................................................................... 25
5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 26
References ....................................................................................................................................... 29
Appendix ........................................................................................................................................... 1
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1 Introduction
Learning one‟s native language is something that happens subconsciously. We often use
words without ever reflecting very much on their actual meaning. It is however
interesting to analyse words further and come to a better understanding of their
meanings since they also reflect how we perceive the world. The English language has
numerous words that seem to mean the same things. This paper focuses on three
adjectives that according to many speakers of English can be seen as representing
roughly the same emotion. They are often considered to be so called near-synonyms i.e.
their meanings are close but their contextual meanings differ somewhat (Cruse 2004:
156-157). Terrified, petrified and horrified are the adjectives that have been chosen for
this study since all of them denote an emotion of fear of something that will or can
happen. However, they are used in different contexts and for non-native English
speakers it can be problematic to understand the difference between these adjectives.
Before the differences and the similarities between terrified, petrified and
horrified can be established it is also important to define the concept of emotional
language. What then is an emotion? The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
(henceforth LDOCE) [www] defines emotion as “a strong human feeling such as love,
hate, or anger”. The biologist Charles Birch (Wierzbecka 1999:1) argues that emotions
are what matter most in life which is why it is fascinating to analyse emotional words.
A well-known scholar within the field of emotions is Robert Plutchik. He defines
emotions as “complex states of the organism involving feelings, behaviour, impulses,
physiological changes and efforts at control” (Plutchick (1991) in Wierzbecka 1999:1).
The present research is based on data from a British and an American corpus. The
British National corpus (henceforth BNC) and The American Corpus of Contemporary
English (henceforth COCA) were chosen, more precisely the newspapers and fiction
subcorpora. This means that only written examples of sentences with terrified, petrified
and horrified were studied.
1.1 Aim
The aim of this paper is to explore the meanings of the adjectives terrified, petrified and
horrified in British and American English. It also aims at discovering what words they
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tend to collocate with. In order to fulfil this aim, the following research questions are
addressed:
What are the relative frequencies of these adjectives in BrE and AmE?
With what kind of words do these adjectives collocate most often?
Do they tend to collocate with the same words in both varieties of English?
What differences in meaning, if any, are there between the emotion adjectives
terrified, petrified and horrified?
1.2 Scope
The scope of this study is limited to two subcorpora in the COCA and the BNC. The
left- and right-hand collocates of the node adjectives terrified, petrified and horrified
are studied. However, not all words occurring in the company of terrified, petrified and
horrified are studied but mainly nouns and intensifiers which are more important from a
semantic perspective. Nouns and intensifiers are more interesting to investigate than
conjunctions and determiners are since they add information and degree respectively to
the adjectives.
2 Theoretical background
2.1 Words and emotion
Many psychologists and biologists prefer to talk about „emotions‟ rather than „feelings‟
since they regard emotions as more objective in the sense that they have a biological
base. These scholars argue that it is only possible to scrutinize concepts that are real and
objective (Wierzbecka 1999:1). Linguists, on the other hand, usually prefer to talk about
affection rather than emotion. In standard linguistics, affect is used as a broad synonym
for feeling and includes moods and attitudes as well as interactional linguistic
phenomena such as hedging. In other words, affection is a general term for linguistically
expressed feelings, attitude and moods of all types (Caffi & Janney 1994:327-328). In
this study, however, the term emotion will be used in order to be as clear as possible and
avoid ambiguity. That this term was chosen instead of affect depends on the adjectives
that were chosen for this study. It seems more appropriate to use the term emotion for
terrified, petrified and horrified since they are short lived states rather than long lived
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states like moods, attitudes and dispositions. Since it seems more accurate to use the
term emotion for these adjectives this term is used in the following pages.
Now that the term emotion has been defined, it is interesting to discover how
emotional words such as e.g. love are defined. When one looks up love in the LDOCE
[www] this emotion is described as “a strong feeling of affection”. This is the case with
most emotional words; they are vaguely described by using the definition of another
emotion. This happens because the meaning of an emotional word is linked to the
description of a feeling. That is to say, in order to understand what love is, one must
understand what affection is and thus, one must understand the concept of love
(Wierzbecka 1999:2-5). Some concepts are universal which means that we know them
intuitively without anyone ever having explained them to us. One example of this sort
of concept is feel. A child picks up the meaning of feel in social interaction before he or
she learns to communicate. The concept of feel can therefore be used in order to explain
more complex concepts such as love or emotion (Wierzbecka 1999:2-5).
2.2 Categorizing emotions and defining emotion concepts
A great deal of work has been done in the recent decade in order to categorize emotions.
No real systematic account of emotions has yet emerged but Johnson-Laird and Oatley
(1989 in Ungerer and Schmid 1996:138-140) are two scholars within the subject of
human cognition who have tried to distinguish between essential emotion words and
more marginal emotion terms. They argue that speakers seem to think that some terms
are more basic than others. For instance love, anger and happiness are seen in English
as more basic emotion words than for example annoyance, rage and regret (Johnson-
Laird & Oatley in Ungerer & Schmid 1996:138-140).
Basicness refers to two things within the category of emotional terms. Firstly, it
means that the concept that corresponds to an emotional word belongs to the middle-
level in a vertical hierarchy of concepts. This means that e.g. „anger‟ lies between the
superordinate level and the subordinate level. On the superordinate level emotion would
be placed and on the subordinate level we would put „annoyance‟ (Kövecses 2000:2-4).
This discussion is made clearer in Figure 1 below:
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Figure 1. Levels of emotion terms (based on Kövecses 2000:3)
Secondly, basicness refers to how prototypical an emotion category is. That is, many
people regard „anger‟ as a better example of an emotion than „annoyance‟.
Psychologists and philosophers have tried to find a limited number of basic emotions.
Johnson-Laird and Oatley have come to the conclusion that “certain emotion terms are
basic and unanalysable in the sense that they cannot be broken down into attributes or
other even more basic emotions” (Johnson-Laird & Oately in Ungerer & Schmid
1996:138). Basic emotion terms are often used to describe less basic emotions.
Johnson-Laird and Oatley describe five basic negative emotions: sadness, anger,
disgust/hate and fear. They also provide us with four positive basic emotions:
joy/happiness and desire/love. Double labels like disgust/hate signify that basic
emotions can be seen as short-lived states (disgust) or dispositions (hate).
Table 1. Basic emotion terms (Johnson-Laird & Oatley 1989 in Ungerer & Schmid
1996: 139)
Negative
emotions
Sadness Joy/Happiness
Anger
Disgust/Hate Desire/Love
Fear
Positive
emotions
What distinguishes these basic emotions from other emotions is mainly the fact that
they seem to be unanalysable and cannot be broken down into even more basic
emotions. These emotion terms also have simple linguistic forms and they are usually
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the first names of emotions that children learn (Johnson-Laird & Oatley in Ungerer &
Schmid 1996:138-140). Wierzbecka (1999:49) is also of the opinion that emotion
concepts have to be separated into different categories but she prefers another type of
categorization. She has chosen to divide emotions into six groups:
1) Something good happened joy, happiness
2) Something bad happened sadness, grief
3) Something bad can/will happen fear, anxiety
4) I don‟t want things like this to happen anger, indignation
5) Thinking about other people envy
6) Thinking about ourselves shame, remorse
Wierzbecka argues that all emotions can fit into any of these six groups. Since this
paper aims at explaining the differences between the less basic emotions terrified,
horrified and petrified the focus is on Wierzbecka‟s third category “something bad
can/will happen”.
It is worth noticing that Wierzbecka only mentions fear relating to the future.
According to her opinion we do not feel fear about things that have already happened in
the past. She argues that terrified, petrified and horrified are emotions related to fear of
something that is about to happen. These emotion words, however, are much stronger in
their meanings than e.g. „fear‟ or „afraid‟ are. A person who is terrified, petrified or
horrified is afraid that something „very bad‟ is going to/can happen (Wierzbecka
1999:75-76).
2.3 The problematic distinction between literal meaning and non-literal meaning
When studying the meaning of words it is important to distinguish between literal and
non-literal meaning. Although this study focuses on emotion adjectives petrified is
included in the study since its non-literal meaning refers to a strong feeling of fear. Many
people probably argue that petrified rather refers to a state of being hard as a stone and
not an emotion. However, in this study both the literal and the non-literal meaning of
petrified are included.
Cruse (2004: 195-197) explains that people seem to think that literal meaning is the
first meaning of a word that springs to mind when reading or hearing a word. However,
people can have different views on what the literal meaning of a word is. Cruse himself
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argues that „expire‟ to him carries the literal meaning „die‟ whereas to his students
„expire‟ carries the literal meaning „come to the end of a period of validity‟. In the same
way some people think that petrified carries the literal meaning „a feeling of fear‟ while
others consider petrified as „being hard as a stone‟.
In dictionaries, the most frequent reading of a word is usually written first but this
might not always be the literal meaning. Cruse uses the verb „see‟ as an example. For
most people the literal meaning of „see‟ is to „have a visual experience‟ but in contrast
„see‟ is most frequently used as referring to „understand‟. It seems that Cruse (2004:195-
197) is of the opinion that there is no literal meaning or that literal meanings differ
greatly depending on person and age since meanings might change over time and also
because many expressions that originally were used as metaphors have changed in
meaning (Cruse 2004:195-197). „Expire‟ probably meant „die‟ to begin with but since it
has been used more and more frequently in sentences such as „my driving license has
expired‟ the word has gradually acquired a different literal meaning, i.e. “come to the end
of a validity”. This is also the case with „crane‟ which refers to both „a bird with very
long legs‟ and „a tall machine used by builders for lifting heavy things‟ (LDOCE [www];
Lundmark 2006:14). To tell which meaning is the literal one is not always easy. When
talking about emotions it is even more difficult to establish their literal meanings since
emotional concepts are likely to differ between individuals. Although this study focuses
on emotion adjectives both the literal meaning and the non literal meaning of petrified
are referred to in the following pages.
3 Material and method
3.1 Material
What is important in order to draw accurate conclusions regarding the meanings of
words is that the chosen corpora are large. Therefore, the primary data sources used in
this paper are the two huge corpora, the BNC and the COCA.
The BNC contains 100 million words of modern BrE. In order to provide a wide
collection of samples of written and spoken BrE it contains language from a great
variety of sources, starting from the later part of the 20th century. The written part of
the BNC includes, for example, extracts from newspapers, specialist periodicals,
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academic books and popular fiction, published and unpublished letters, school and
university essays, among many other kinds of text (BNC [www]).
The COCA contains approximately 385 million words derived from spoken
language, fiction, popular magazines, newspapers and academic texts. The corpus is
updated every six to nine months and serves as a great record of linguistic changes in
AmE (COCA [www]).
3.1.1 Corpora, concordance and collocations
Since this study is based on the analysis of corpora it is essential that the most important
aspects of corpus linguistics are made clear. First of all, it is important to know that a
corpus consists of a selection of texts naturally occurring in a language. These texts are
electronically stored in order to help us monitor and analyse language usage and the
contextual meanings of words. A corpus normally contains millions of words and it is
vital to have a large corpus in order to be able to analyze the structure of a language
accurately (Kennedy 1998: 3-4).
Furthermore, a concordance is a list of word strings retrieved from a corpus. The
concordance shows how often a particular word occurs and each word is still attached to
the original text it belongs to. KWIC (Key Word in Context) is the most widely used
concordance format. This format shows a line of text that can be used in order to
analyse that words most frequently occur before and after a particular key word or node
word (Kennedy 1998:247-251). The following text is an example of a concordance line
retrieved from the BNC:
(1) easy for people to misunderstand religious language and ritual. There
is a very strong tendency to take literally what needs imaginative
interpretation. All the great religions affirm that at
Finally, some words have a tendency to occur in the company of other words. For
instance, the word strong often occurs in the company of tendency, as demonstrated in
the concordance line above (Kennedy 1998:108). It is crucial to have knowledge of
collocations in order to create a correct sentence in a language.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to draw a line between what constitutes a collocation
and what does not. For instance, it is debatable how many times a word must occur in
the company of another word in order for these words to be accepted as collocates
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(Kennedy 1998:111). It is also debatable whether determiners, conjunctions and
prepositions should be accepted as collocations. The frequency of “a/an terrified” and
“some terrified” is very common but these sets of words are not normally considered to
be collocations.
3.2 Method
In order to answer the research questions a quantitative method was chosen. When
doing corpus studies this is the most common approach since it involves analyses of
how frequent certain words are. A strategic choice of investigating the occurrences of
terrified, petrified and horrified in fiction and newspapers was made since it seems
more likely that these words occur more frequently in these text types. An AmE corpus
and a BrE corpus were chosen in order to be able to find out whether these words are
used differently in these two varieties of English.
The COCA and the BNC were searched in order to collect data. After logging on
to the corpus website the emotional adjective e.g. terrified was typed in the search box.
At POS LIST „all adjectives‟ was chosen in order only to get adjectives and no other
word classes. After clicking on „charts‟ and „search‟, tables showing the frequency of
the adjective were shown within the different subcorpora available. The focus was on
the newspaper and fiction tables and on the number of frequencies calculated per
million words.
In order to obtain lists of interesting collocations to analyse the emotional
adjective and an asterisk was typed in the search box, e.g. terrified *. Under sections
„yes‟ was chosen in order to be able to see from which subcorpora each collocation
came. The thirty most common collocations were put in tables and from those tables the
most interesting collocations were selected based on which word class they belong to.
For instance, determiners, conjunctions and prepositions were not selected as they did
not tell anything about the contextual differences between the adjectives. Instead nouns,
verbs and adverbs were selected. Of this reason some of the tables in the result section
only contain six or seven collocations while other tables contain many more
collocations. After being put in tables the different collocations were analysed and
compared.
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3.3 Limitations and problems
The biggest difficulty during this study was to decide what to accept as a collocation. In
the appendix, the thirty words occurring in the company of the node words terrified,
petrified and horrified are presented in tables. According to Kennedy (1998:108), some
linguists argue that all these words are collocations, but as my personal interest was to
find the difference in meaning between the chosen adjectives, this study focuses on
words that intuitively are regarded as being collocations.
For this reason, the section about collocations mainly focuses on nouns and
intensifiers as collocates of terrified, petrified and horrified. It was observed during the
analyses that the possibility to find differences in meaning between the adjectives is
greater when the focus is on nouns, verbs and intensifiers rather than prepositions and
determiners. This means that words such as the, not, a/an, of were not studied. Neither
were collocations where terrified, petrified or horrified were used as verbs e.g. terrified
him rather than adjectives. Nouns are interesting to analyse since adjectives can be
attributes to nouns and thus add information about the noun. However, adjectives can
have a predicative function as well e.g. “he is horrified”. Additionally, intensifiers are
interesting to study since they add degree and intensity to the adjective, such as
absolutely in “absolutely terrified”.
This study focuses on the left-hand and the right-hand collocates of terrified,
petrified and horrified. It would have been interesting to focus on collocates occurring
further away from the node adjectives, i.e. context words, but for lack of time this was
not possible.
Furthermore, in the tables a column showing the frequencies of the collocations in
the whole corpus was included. However, a thorough analysis of this did not fit within
the boundaries of this paper.
4 Results
In this section the results of the corpus investigation are presented by means of several
tables. The study begins by an analysis of the frequencies of terrified, petrified and
horrified. Each emotion adjective is analysed and exemplified in a separate section
before they are compared. After frequency, collocations and differences in meanings are
discussed.
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4.1 Frequency
4.1.1 Terrified
Table 2 below shows the frequency of terrified in AmE and BrE within the subcorpora
fiction and newspaper. All figures in Table 2 show the frequency per million words,
meaning for example that out of a million words terrified occurs 29.5 times in BrE
fiction.
Table 2. The frequencies of terrified in BrE and AmE fiction and newspaper
Subcorpora BrE AmE
Fiction 29.5 29.8
Newspaper 18.7 5.6
As can be seen, terrified is used more often in fiction than in newspapers. Example (2)
was found in an AmE newspaper whereas example (3) was found in AmE fiction.
(2) terrified tourists and residents fled the second bombing,
(3) It hisses with a terrified breath full of wild fear.
Generally, emotions occur more frequently in fiction than in other text types. What is
most noteworthy in Table 2 is that the occurrences of terrified in AmE newspapers are
much lower than the occurrences of terrified in BrE newspapers. This is remarkable
since the use of terrified in fiction is as common in both varieties of English. When
looking closer at the topics and headings of the newspaper articles in the COCA and the
BNC no clue was found to why terrified is much more frequent in BrE newspapers
compared to AmE newspapers. Example (4) below is an extract from AmE newspapers
while example (5) is taken from a BrE newspaper.
(4) reports of rape and murder terrified America in the initial hours
following the storm
(5) A terrified woman driver fled across six lanes of a motorway after a
man tried to grab her
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Since no difference in the use of terrified was found between AmE newspapers and BrE
newspapers it might be the case that another emotion adjective for fear is used to
express fear in AmE newspapers. However, such a synonym was not found in this
study. As the following pages will show neither petrified nor horrified were frequently
used in US newspapers. Alternatively, it might be a question of formality between AmE
and BrE if the use of emotion words in US newspapers is much lower compared to BrE
newspapers. That would indicate that AmE is more formal since they use less emotion
words. However, more studies must be conducted before this hypothesis can be
confirmed.
4.1.2 Petrified
Table 3 below shows the occurrences per million words of petrified in AmE and BrE
within the subcorpora fiction and newspaper.
Table 3. The frequencies of petrified in BrE and AmE fiction and newspaper
Subcorpora BrE AmE
Fiction 3.7 3.4
Newspaper 1.7 1.3
Table 3 shows that the emotion adjective petrified is used very rarely in both AmE and
BrE. We can also see that petrified is used more in fiction than in newspapers in the
same way as terrified is. In Table 3, however, the frequencies of the word petrified
seem to be similar in both varieties of English. That is to say, petrified is used
approximately as frequently in both varieties of English in the subcorpora fiction and
newspaper. Even though the number of occurrences of petrified is somewhat higher in
BrE, no conclusions can be drawn on petrified being used more frequently in BrE since
the numbers differ so little. Examples (6) and (7) below show how petrified is used in
BrE fiction (6) and in AmE newspapers (7). As one can see, petrified carries two
different meanings, which are discussed in Sections 4.2 and 4.3.2
(6) the latest shapes in petrified wood adorning the mantelpieces
(7) After the accident, he's petrified to go on the school bus
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4.1.3 Horrified
Table 4 below shows the frequencies of horrified in AmE and BrE in the genres fiction
and newspapers.
Table 4. The frequencies of horrified in BrE and AmE fiction and newspaper
Subcorpora BrE AmE
Fiction 18.8 12.5
Newspaper 13.1 4.0
Out of one million words horrified is used 18.8 times in BrE fiction and 12.5 times in
AmE fiction. Horrified is used less often in newspapers just like terrified and petrified
are. However, the frequency of horrified in newspapers is considerably higher in BrE
than in AmE. Out of one million words in the newspaper subcorpus there are 13.1
occurrences of horrified in BrE, while there are only 4.0 occurrences of horrified in
AmE. Horrified is, in both genres, more common in BrE than in AmE.
Concordance line (8) below is an example from AmE newspapers while
concordance line (9) is an example from BrE fiction.
(8) the world was horrified by photographic images of Iraqi detainees being
tortured and humiliated by American soldiers
(9) She stopped, horrified at what she had been about to say
4.1.4 Comparisons of the frequencies of terrified, petrified and horrified
Terrfied is the adjective out of these three that is more commonly used in both AmE and
BrE both in fiction and in newspapers. In AmE terrified is used much more often than
petrified and horrified. Furthermore, the data show that none of these emotion
adjectives are used frequently in AmE newspapers. There is a chance that emotional
adjectives are less used in AmE newspapers than they are in BrE newspapers, or
alternatively they use other words than terrified, petrified and horrified for describing
fear in AmE newspapers. Generally, all three adjectives are more frequently used in
BrE and petrified is the least used one in both varieties of English.
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4.2 Collocations
In this section the left -and right-hand collocates of terrified, petrified and horrified are
presented and analysed. Collocates are the words surrounding the node words i.e.
terrified, petrified and horrified. Collocation is the set of words containing both the
node word and the left- or right-hand collocate. Thus, absolutely terrified is a
collocation whereas absolutely is a left-hand collocate of terrified.
When compiling the collocations, the frequencies of the collocations in the whole
corpus were included also, in order to show the overall frequency of the collocations. It
is interesting to see how common a collocation is in fiction and newspaper and then
compare to how common it is generally, in the whole corpus. All figures in the
following tables show the frequency per million words.
As most adjectives, terrified, petrified and horrified carry two grammatical
functions; one attributive function and one predicative function. When the node
adjective occurs to the left of the collocate the adjective has an attributive function as in
example (10) below. When the adjective has an attributive function the adjective is
usually preceding the noun which it modifies (Estling Vannestål 2007:220).
(10) Mack sees his own terrified face staring back from the mirror
In contrast the adjective has a predicative function when it describes either the subject
or the object (Estling Vannestål 2007:220) as in examples (11) below.
(11) The hitchhiker looks petrified.
Tables 5 and 6 below show the most common right-hand collocates of terrified in AmE
and BrE.
Table 5. Right-hand collocates of terrified in AmE
Collocates Fiction Newspaper The whole corpus
Terrified eyes 18 1 22
Terrified young 11 2 21
Terrified face 16 0 20
Terrified people 2 7 18
Terrified look 8 1 11
Terrified scream 8 0 10
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Table 6. Right-hand collocates of terrified in BrE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole corpus
Terrified eyes 10 0 11
Terrified woman 1 6 7
Terrified children 2 3 6
Terrified child 5 0 5
Terrified horse 4 0 4
Terrified horses 3 0 3
Terrified glance 3 0 3
Terrified face 3 0 3
When comparing Tables 5 and 6 above, we see that the most common collocation in
both varieties of English is terrified eyes with 22 occurrences in the whole COCA and
11 occurrences in the whole BNC. Another collocation that is common in both varieties
of English is terrified face. Both of these collocations occur mainly in fiction. Also
terrified look and terrified glance are common collocations and these sets of words are
closely connected to terrified face and terrified eyes since they all refer to someone
looking terrified. Example (12) below is taken from AmE fiction.
(12) seeing the last plea for mercy in the terrified eyes.
What is noteworthy is that terrified woman is common in BrE newspapers while
terrified people is more common in AmE newspapers. Possibly, it can be assumed that
AmE tend to be more gender-neutral. On the other hand, it might be the case that
newspapers in the US do not write about things that happen to single individuals but
rather write about big events affecting more people and thus more often write terrified
people rather than terrified woman. The US is after all a much larger country than the
UK, with many more crimes happening every day. However, it is peculiar that terrified
man is not a common collocation in BrE while terrified woman is.
(13) A terrified woman handed over cash after being threatened with an
imitation handgun
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(14) Terrified children were led outside in their costumes away from the
poisonous fumes.
(15) Hundreds of terrified people waiting to hear Mandela ran for cover as
police fired blasts of shotgun pellets.
Even though terrified women was not among the thirty most common collocations in
either variety of English it was more common than the use of terrified men. Women are
thus, more terrified than men are in AmE and BrE and it can be assumed that women
are more often victims of crime. However, these are only speculations so far.
It is also noteworthy that terrified young is more common in AmE newspapers
while terrified children is more common in BrE newspapers. Young carries a vaguer
meaning than children since young includes both teenagers and children. This is
probably the reason for why the occurrences of terrified young are much higher than the
occurrences of children are in all subcorpora. In AmE terrified young occurs 21 times in
all subcorpora while terrified children occurs six times in all subcorpora in BrE.
Furthermore, it is a bit surprising that terrified horse and terrified horses are such
common collocations in BrE fiction. Examples (16) and (17) below were retrieved from
BrE fiction. The first concordance line in (16) is a good example of how terrified horse
is used as a simile in order to compare the sudden movement of the land to the
behaviour of a terrified horse.
(16) The land bucked and heaved like a terrified horse
(17) there was always more chaos from the terrified horses than from
the loss of men.
Tables 7 and 8 below show the most common left-hand collocates of terrified in AmE
and BrE. The figures show the occurrences per million words.
16
Table 7. Left-hand collocates of terrified in AmE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
corpus
so terrified 34 12 101
too terrified 27 6 45
absolutely terrified 10 5 37
looked terrified 30 1 32
more terrified 14 1 27
just terrified 3 2 25
really terrified 4 3 19
still terrified 9 0 19
suddenly terrified 14 0 18
looks terrified 13 2 17
Table 8. Left-hand collocates of terrified in BrE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
corpus
so terrified 11 3 29
absolutely terrified 6 6 22
too terrified 3 13 18
still terrified 4 1 9
just terrified 4 0 6
more terrified 3 1 6
looked terrified 5 0 6
obviously terrified 4 0 6
clearly terrified 2 0 5
always terrified 1 0 4
There are no big differences between the word-classes which appear as left-hand
collocates of terrified in AmE and BrE. Absolutely, just, looked, more, still, so and too
are in both varieties of English words that frequently occur before terrified. All of these
17
left-hand collocates, except looked, are adverbs adding degree and intensity to the node
adjective.
Nevertheless, there are big differences between how often these collocations
occur in AmE and BrE. For instance, so terrified occurs 34 times in AmE fiction and 12
times in AmE newspapers but only 11 times in BrE fiction and 3 times in BrE
newspapers.
Examples (18) and (19) below show how terrified can be used. Example (18) was
taken from BrE while (19) was taken from AmE.
(18) The sight of Ronald Reagan on television clearly terrified the Boll
Weevils and the Democratic leadership
(19) " We are really terrified and living in horror, " he said.
Below are two tables presenting the most common collocates appearing before petrified.
Table 9 presents the AmE collocations whereas Table 10 shows the BrE collocations.
Table 9. Right-hand collocates of petrified in AmE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole corpus
Petrified forest 12 14 65
Petrified wood 23 12 50
Petrified man 0 1 14
Petrified gardens 1 0 12
Petrified men 0 0 6
Petrified sand 0 1 5
Petrified trees 0 0 4
Petrified forests 3 0 3
Petrified birds 1 0 2
Petrified bones 0 0 2
Petrified bread 0 1 2
Petrified coral 1 0 2
Petrified lava 2 0 2
Petrified life 0 0 2
18
Table 10. Right-hand collocates of petrified in BrE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole corpus
Petrified forest 1 0 6
Petrified wood 3 0 3
Petrified lump 0 0 2
Petrified trees 0 0 2
Petrified zoo 0 0 1
Petrified whirlpool 1 0 1
Petrified monster 1 0 1
Petrified Marxism 0 0 1
Petrified tree 1 0 1
Petrified trawler 1 0 1
Petrified toddler 0 0 1
Petrified state 0 0 1
Petrified spaghetti 0 0 1
Petrified silence 0 0 1
It is clear that petrified carries a different meaning than terrified due to the different
collocations we get from the tables above. Petrified is commonly used with uncountable
nouns such as forest, tree and wood. In this company petrified refers to something that
has died and changed into stone. Most of the AmE and BrE collocations refer to
something that has turned into stone or something that is unable to move. However, if
prepositions would have been included in the collocations studied in this paper, then
more instances with the non-literal meaning of petrified would have been found. The
sentence below is an example of how the non-literal meaning of petrified is used.
(20) She is absolutely petrified of that cat.
The non-literal meaning of petrified is thus to be so afraid of something that you are
unable to move. When talking about petrified forest and petrified wood people refer to
the literal meaning of petrified. As discussed in Section 2, people tend to have different
views on what the literal meaning of a word is. Thus, it might be the case that some
people think that petrified carries another literal meaning.
19
As Table 10 shows, two of the collocations found are much more common in
AmE than in BrE. Petrified forest and petrified wood occurs many more times in AmE
compared to BrE. However, in the US there are some large national parks with petrified
woods and petrified forest while there are no such parks in the UK. For instance in
Arizona in the US there is a famous park called the petrified forest. It seems reasonable
to argue that this provides some explanation for the high number of occurrences of
petrified forest in AmE compared to the low number in BrE.
Tables 11 and 12 below show the most frequent left-hand collocations of petrified
in AmE and BrE.
Table 11. Left-hand collocates of petrified in AmE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
absolutely petrified 5 3 14
like petrified 3 0 7
so petrified 0 1 5
just petrified 0 0 4
looks petrified 4 0 4
totally petrified 1 0 3
freaking petrified 2 0 2
completely petrified 1 0 2
bit petrified 0 0 2
giant petrified 1 0 2
20
Table 12. Left-hand collocates of petrified in BrE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
like petrified 1 0 3
absolutely petrified 0 1 3
always petrified 0 0 2
almost petrified 2 0 2
stood petrified 1 0 2
still petrified 1 0 2
so petrified 1 0 2
totally petrified 1 0 1
justifiable petrified 0 0 1
just petrified 0 0 1
sitting petrified 0 1 1
There are no big differences between the word-classes appearing as left-hand collocates
of petrified in AmE and BrE. The adverbs and intensifiers absolutely, like, too, so, just
and totally are common in both varieties. In BrE stood petrified and sitting petrified are
relatively common collocations. They both refer to the non-literal meaning of petrified
since they refer to being very still. Looks petrified was obtained from AmE and also
this collocation refers to the non-literal meaning of petrified. Looks, stood and sitting
are all verbs and it seems as if the non-literal meaning of petrified always appears when
the left-hand collocate of petrified is a verb, thus when petrified is used predicatively.
(21) For just a few seconds she stood petrified
(22) David Roberts sitting petrified but unhurt in the wreckage.
Table 13 and 14 below show the most common collocates appearing before horrified in
AmE and BrE.
21
Table 13. Right-hand collocates of horrified in AmE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole corpus
Horrified look 0 3 25
Horrified face 13 0 13
Horrified fascination 7 1 10
Horrified expression 6 0 8
Horrified disbelief 6 1 7
Horrified faces 5 0 6
Horrified looks 5 0 6
Horrified eyes 5 0 5
Horrified gasp 4 0 5
Horrified mother 0 2 5
Horrified reaction 1 0 5
Table 14. Right-hand collocates of horrified in BrE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole Corpus
Horrified fascination 14 0 16
Horrified disbelief 5 1 7
Horrified face 6 0 7
Horrified eyes 6 0 7
Horrified silence 7 0 7
Horrified expression 5 0 5
Horrified look 4 0 4
Horrified reaction 2 0 4
Horrified mother 0 2 3
Horrified glance 3 0 3
Horrified cry 3 0 3
Horrified
comprehension
2 0 2
Horrified gaze 2 0 2
Horrified interest 2 0 2
22
Table 14 shows that look, face, fascination, expression, disbelief, eyes and mother are
examples of nouns that frequently appear before horrified i.e. when horrified has an
attributive function.
In AmE horrified look occurs 25 times per million words but it never occurs in
fiction and only three times in newspapers. However, in BrE horrified look only occurs
in fiction and never in another genre. Horrified face, on the other hand, only occurs in
fiction and in no other subcorpora in AmE. Thus, horrified look is not used in AmE
fiction while horrified face is.
It is noteworthy that horrified mother is more common in newspapers than in
fiction. This is not very surprising since newspapers are more eager to sell many copies
everyday and they tend to use a more straightforward and sensational language in order
to attract readers.
(23) One itemised phone bill to Bedworth's horrified mother ran to 34
pages of listed calls, the jury heard.
Tables 15 and 16 below show the most frequent left-hand collocates of horrified in
AmE and BrE.
Table 15. Left-hand collocates of horrified in AmE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
so horrified 13 2 32
looked horrified 5 12 26
Absolutely horrified 2 3 14
looks horrified 10 1 13
just horrified 0 0 10
really horrified 2 0 8
too horrified 8 0 8
23
Table 16. Left-hand collocates of horrified in BrE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
so horrified 4 1 12
looked horrified 7 0 12
absolutely horrified 2 1 10
utterly horrified 1 2 5
rather horrified 3 0 3
almost horrified 2 0 2
apparently horrified 1 0 2
clearly horrified 1 0 2
There are no big differences among the collocates occurring on the left side of horrified
when looking only at the word-classes. So, looked and absolutely are frequently used
before horrified in both varieties of English. However, when looking at the frequency of
the collocations there are clear differences. For instance, looked horrified seems more
common in AmE newspapers than in AmE fiction. When comparing these numbers to
the frequency among the subcorpora in BrE it is obvious that looked horrified is used
differently in BrE. In BrE, looked horrified is most frequently used in fiction and it is
never used in newspapers. This also corresponds to the findings among the right-hand
collocates of horrified, since horrified look never occurred in AmE fiction but occurred
a few times in AmE newspapers. In BrE neither horrified look nor looked horrified
occur in newspapers while they do occur in fiction.
What is more, so horrified occurs four times per million words in BrE and 13
times in AmE fiction. Generally, i.e. in all subcorpora, so horrified occurs 12 times in
BrE and 32 times in AmE. Thus, so horrified is more common in AmE than in BrE.
4.2.1 Comparison of the collocations of terrified, petrified and horrified
Terrified and horrified are surrounded by similar words in both varieties of English.
Terrified eyes, horrified eyes, terrified face, horrified face and terrified look, horrified
look are used frequently in both AmE and BrE. They are especially common in fiction.
In AmE newspapers terrified people tend to be more frequent than terrified woman and
24
terrified children which are common in BrE newspapers. This might be caused by a
stronger will to use a more thrilling and shocking language in BrE newspapers.
Horrified seems to carry some difference in meaning when we compare the words
occurring with horrified and terrified. In both varieties of English, horrified is used
attributively with nouns such as fascination, disbelief, expression, and reaction. In other
words, it is more common to say in both AmE and BrE e.g. horrified reaction or
horrified expression rather than terrified reaction or terrified expression. It is also
interesting that horrified mother is more common than terrified mother while terrified
woman is more common than horrified woman.
From the words occurring in the company of petrified it is clear that petrified
carries a more specific meaning than terrified and horrified do. Petrified is, in both
varieties of English, habitually used attributively together with nouns such as tree,
forest and wood while terrified and horrified are not. Petrified does carry a similar
meaning to terrified and horrified but petrified additionally refers to something that has
died and changed into stone. The literal meaning of petrified is to have died and
changed into stone while the non-literal meaning is to be so afraid that you are
paralyzed and cannot move.
When looking at the words to the left of terrified, petrified and horrified we can
see that many intensifiers such as so, absolutely, just and looks are very common among
all of the adjectives. However, too is not frequently used with petrified in either AmE or
BrE, while it is frequently used with the two other adjectives.
The intensifier really is more frequent together with these adjectives in AmE than
it is in BrE. In BrE, however, clearly is more frequent than it is in AmE.
(24) Now Jeralyn was really horrified. (AmE)
(25) this person clearly terrified this woman. (BrE)
4.3 Difference in meaning
It seems obvious that in order to understand what for instance terrified is, one must
know what the basic emotion fear is. In Section 2.2 different ideas on how to
categorize emotions were presented and it was explained that fear belongs to the basic
level whereas emotions such as fright and anxiety belong to the subordinate level. It is
25
plausible to argue that also terrified, petrified and horrified belong to the subordinate
level under fear. However, terrified, petrified and horrified refer to something worse
than just fear and it seems necessary to come up with more categories than the ones that
were presented in Section 2.2 in order to separate for instance petrified from worried.
4.3.1 Terrified
The literal meaning of terrified is according to the LDOCE [www] to be “very
frightened”. Below is one example of terrified, extracted from an AmE newspaper.
(26) Ford is terrified of losing his superstar touch.
4.3.2 Petrified
The meaning of petrified is according to the LDOCE [www] to be “extremely frightened,
especially so frightened that you cannot move or think”. However, if petrified occurs in the
company of trees or wood, the LDOCE explains that it means “wood, trees etc., that have
changed into stone over a long period of time”. When the different collocations, presented
in Section 4.2, were compared it was clear that petrified carries a different literal-meaning
from terrified and horrified. Petrified means that something has died and changed into
stone but non-literally it means that one is so afraid that one is paralysed.
Below is an example of a concordance line showing that petrified carries a different
literal meaning from terrified and horrified.
(27) Slivers of black burnt onion, petrified bacon rinds, lacy brown
scraps of fried eggs.
4.3.3 Horrified
According to the LDOCE [www] the literal meaning of horrified is that you “feel very
shocked and afraid or upset”. In Section 4.2, it was found that horrified is used
frequently with nouns such as expression, disbelief and reaction.
When studying the collocations and some concordances with horrified, it seems as
if the difference between terrified and horrified is that horrified refers to being shocked
and upset whereas terrified does not seem to do so. The sentence below makes the
meaning of horrified a bit clearer.
26
(28) The price of a full season ticket was going to be as much as a
term's school fees, and when I saw my father's horrified face, I
said, "I can cycle."
In Section 4.2 where collocations were analysed, it was interesting to discover that
horrified mother was more frequent than terrified mother. The reason why this is the
case might be because children have a tendency of not only frightening their mothers
but also shocking them and making them upset. Extract (29) below shows an example
of this.
(29) convinced his horrified mother, who wanted him to be a
preacher, that acting was only a stopgap measure until he
became a writer.
5 Conclusion
Four research questions were addressed in Section 1.1 in order to fulfil the aim of this
study, which was to explore the meanings of the adjectives terrified, petrified and
horrified. In this section the answer to the research questions are discussed.
First of all it became clear during this study that out of the three adjectives that have
been studied, terrified is most frequently used in both AmE and BrE. The meaning of
terrified is less specific than the meanings of petrified and horrified and that is probably
the reason why terrified is more frequently used. Terrified means to be very frightened,
whereas horrified means that one, in addition to being very afraid, is also shocked and
upset. Petrified, on the other hand, means that one is so extremely afraid that one is unable
to move or think. The adjective that was least used in AmE and BrE was petrified. The
reason why petrified is least used might be since its meaning is more specific than the
meanings of terrified and horrified are. Petrified carries two different meanings. The literal
meaning is to be hard like stone, while the non-literal meaning is to be so frightened that
one cannot move. Consequently, it seems unreasonable to argue that petrified is a near-
synonym to terrified and horrified. Furthermore, if one were to put terrified, petrified and
horrified on a scale of degree, depending on how frightened someone is, it seems correct to
place petrified as number one. That is, when someone is petrified someone is more afraid
than someone is who is terrified, since someone who is petrified is so very afraid that he or
27
she is paralyzed. In contrast, it is difficult to know where to place horrified and terrified on
such a scale. Even though we know that horrified additionally refers to being shocked it is
difficult to distinguish the degree of fright between horrified and terrified. Consequently, it
seems plausible to argue that terrified and horrified can be considered as near-synonyms.
What is more, terrified, petrified and horrified most often collocate with nouns and
adverbs. The most frequent adverbs that were used in the company of terrified, petrified
and horrified were absolutely, so and just. The most frequent nouns occurring in the
company of these adjectives were eyes, face, and look. However, these nouns were not
very frequent in the company of petrified. Instead uncountable nouns such as wood and
forest are more frequent. In these cases petrified means that something has turned into
stone over a very long period of time.
It is obvious that the meaning of horrified differs from the meaning of terrified and
petrified, when collocations and concordance lines are studied. Since horrified often occurs
attributively, i.e. to the left of nouns such as reaction, disbelief and fascination it became
clear that horrified refers to being upset and shocked as well as very frightened.
Furthermore, all adjectives tend to occur with the same kind of word-classes in both
varieties of English. However, some differences regarding the intensifiers were found. For
instance, really is more commonly used in AmE while clearly is more frequent in BrE.
In addition, some general conclusions can be drawn regarding the usage of terrified,
petrified and horrified. Firstly, all of these emotion adjectives are more frequent per
million words in BrE than in AmE and secondly, they are more frequent in fiction than in
newspapers.
The results of the present research are significant since they explain the difference
between three adjectives that according to many people seem to represent the same
emotion. It is important to know the difference between near-synonyms if one wants to
create idiomatically correct sentences in a language. Native speakers normally have an
instinct telling them which word to use in a specific context but for non-native speakers the
difference between these words must be explained to avoid mistakes and
misunderstandings.
Many suggestions for further research can be made since there are many synonyms
that need to be investigated in order to provide better understandings of the contextual
differences between these words. However, in connection with the emotion adjectives
which are investigated in this paper it would be interesting to explore the meanings of
other similar adjectives such as appalled, frightened and scared. It would also be
28
interesting to see how the results would differ if prepositions would have been counted as
collocates.
29
References
Primary sources
British National Corpus, http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/x.asp. Accessed on 2 April, 2009.
Corpus of Contemporary American English, http://www.americancorpus.org/. Accessed on
2 April, 2009.
Secondary sources
British National Corpus, http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/corpus/index.xml. Accessed on 16
March, 2009.
Caffi, C, & Janney, R.W. 1994. Toward a Pragmatics of emotive communication. Journal
of Pragmatics: an interdisciplinary quarterly of language studies. 22:325-373.
Cruse, Alan. 2004. Meaning in Language – anIintroduction to Semantics and Pragmatics.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Estling Vannestål, Maria. 2007. A University grammar - with a Swedish perspective. Lund:
Studentlitteratur.
Kennedy, Graeme. 1998. An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics. Harlow: Addison Wesley
Longman Limited.
Kövecses, Zoltan. 2000. Metaphor and Emotion – Language, Culture and Body in Human
Feeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, http://www.ldoceonline.com/. Accessed on
20 March, 2009.
Lundmark, Angelica. 2006. Verbs in the Domain of Transactions: a Lexical and Semantic
Study of Borrowing and Lending. Luleå: Luleå University of Technology.
Ungerer, Friedrich & Schmid, Hans-Jörg. 1996. An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics.
Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
Wierzbecka, Anna. 1999. Emotions across Languages and Cultures – Diversity and
Universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1
Appendix
Table 1. Words on the first to the right of terrified in AmE
Table 2. Words on the first to the right of terrified in BrE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
Terrified of 85 30 204
Terrified that 30 6 68
Terrified by 20 7 51
Terrified to 11 15 39
Collocates Fiction Newspaper The whole
corpus
Terrified of 261 87 664
Terrified that 86 21 210
Terrified by 58 19 156
Terrified and 67 140 140
Terrified to 59 19 132
Terrified me 40 10 71
Terrified her 46 3 57
Terrified him 39 2 56
Terrified at 15 6 49
Terrified the 15 8 42
Terrified about 5 5 35
Terrified for 16 3 33
Terrified as 21 1 30
Terrified he 16 6 29
Terrified eyes 18 1 22
Terrified when 4 7 22
Terrified I 12 2 21
Terrified young 11 2 21
Terrified face 16 0 20
Terrified because 2 2 18
Terrified people 2 7 18
Terrified they 5 2 18
Terrified in 8 1 17
Terrified she 10 3 15
Terrified them 9 0 15
Terrified or 4 0 12
Terrified look 8 1 11
Terrified but 7 0 10
Terrified if 3 0 10
Terrified scream 8 0 10
2
Terrified and 19 2 31
Terrified at 8 2 21
Terrified the 8 2 20
Terrified me 6 0 17
Terrified her 14 1 16
Terrified when 4 3 13
Terrified eyes 10 0 11
Terrified she 9 1 11
Terrified he 8 1 11
Terrified as 3 1 7
Terrified woman 1 6 7
Terrified children 2 3 6
Terrified out of 4 0 6
Terrified them 2 0 6
Terrified child 5 0 5
Terrified but 0 2 5
Terrified about 1 1 4
Terrified I 0 0 4
Terrified in 1 0 4
Terrified him 4 0 4
Terrified horse 4 0 4
Terrified they 1 1 4
Terrified horses 3 0 3
Terrified in case 1 0 3
Terrified glance 3 0 3
Terrified face 3 0 3
Table 3. Words on the first to the left of terrified in AmE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
was terrified 290 61 639
and terrified 115 18 207
the terrified 120 15 188
are terrified 21 27 161
is terrified 87 11 154
were terrified 37 24 148
so terrified 34 12 101
be terrified 39 14 98
been terrified 48 10 80
am terrified 19 15 48
too terrified 27 6 45
of terrified 14 13 42
it terrified 24 3 41
that terrified 19 5 40
absolutely terrified 10 5 37
looked terrified 30 1 32
3
her terrified 21 1 27
how terrified 14 2 27
more terrified 14 1 27
being terrified 9 4 25
just terrified 3 2 25
had terrified 19 0 22
as terrified 13 1 21
with terrified 14 0 20
really terrified 4 3 19
still terrified 9 0 19
suddenly terrified 14 0 18
but terrified 7 3 17
looks terrified 13 2 17
his terrified 12 0 16
Table 4. Words on the first to the left of terrified in BrE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
was terrified 81 30 184
and terrified 22 7 44
the terrified 21 15 44
been terrified 20 4 33
is terrified 4 6 31
were terrified 10 9 31
be terrified 6 5 30
so terrified 11 3 29
are terrified 2 10 25
absolutely terrified 6 6 22
too terrified 3 13 18
being terrified 4 3 10
his terrified 6 3 10
of terrified 6 1 10
it terrified 6 0 9
still terrified 4 1 9
have terrified 6 1 8
their terrified 2 3 7
just terrified 4 0 6
more terrified 3 1 6
looked terrified 5 0 6
obviously terrified 4 0 6
clearly terrified 2 0 5
all terrified 3 1 5
as terrified 1 2 5
he terrified 0 1 5
how terrified 2 0 4
4
am terrified 0 0 4
always terrified 1 0 4
not terrified 1 0 4
Table 5. Words on the first to the right of petrified in AmE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
Petrified forest 12 14 65
Petrified wood 23 12 50
Petrified of 4 5 31
Petrified man 0 1 14
Petrified by 3 1 13
Petrified gardens 1 0 12
Petrified and 5 2 12
Petrified that 3 2 12
Petrified at 5 1 10
Petrified in 3 1 7
Petrified to 5 1 7
Petrified with 3 0 7
Petrified about 0 3 6
Petrified men 0 0 6
Petrified sand 0 1 5
Petrified the 2 1 4
Petrified trees 0 0 4
Petrified when 2 0 4
Petrified into 0 0 3
Petrified I 1 1 3
Petrified forests 3 0 3
Petrified as 1 0 2
Petrified birds 1 0 2
Petrified beyond 1 1 2
Petrified bones 0 0 2
Petrified bread 0 1 2
Petrified for 0 1 2
Petrified coral 1 0 2
Petrified lava 2 0 2
Petrified life 0 0 2
Table 6. Words on the first to the right of petrified in BrE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
Petrified of 2 2 19
Petrified with 4 0 9
Petrified forest 1 0 6
5
Petrified when 2 1 4
Petrified wood 3 0 3
Petrified in 0 0 3
Petrified by 1 1 3
Petrified and 1 0 3
Petrified at 1 0 2
Petrified I 0 0 2
Petrified lump 0 0 2
Petrified that 0 0 2
Petrified trees 0 0 2
Petrified zoo 0 0 1
Petrified whirlpool 1 0 1
Petrified us 1 0 1
Petrified monster 1 0 1
Petrified me 0 0 1
Petrified Marxism 0 0 1
Petrified tree 1 0 1
Petrified trawler 1 0 1
Petrified toddler 0 0 1
Petrified to 1 0 1
Petrified they 0 0 1
Petrified them 1 0 1
Petrified the 0 0 1
Petrified than 0 0 1
Petrified state 0 0 1
Petrified spaghetti 0 0 1
Petrified silence 0 0 1
Table 7. Words on the first to the left of petrified in AmE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
the petrified 32 17 93
was petrified 19 14 69
of petrified 17 10 38
a petrified 15 2 33
and petrified 5 9 21
are petrified 4 2 15
absolutely petrified 5 3 14
is petrified 7 2 12
were petrified 2 2 11
be petrified 0 1 9
like petrified 3 0 7
been petrified 2 0 6
at petrified 1 1 5
so petrified 0 1 5
with petrified 2 0 5
just petrified 0 0 4
6
in petrified 3 0 4
looks petrified 4 0 4
not petrified 1 0 3
on petrified 1 0 3
by petrified 0 0 3
become petrified 2 0 3
am petrified 0 1 3
totally petrified 1 0 3
as petrified 1 0 2
freaking petrified 2 0 2
completely
petrified
1 0 2
bit petrified 0 0 2
had petrified 1 0 2
giant petrified 1 0 2
Table 8. Words on the first to the left of petrified in BrE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
was petrified 6 5 28
the petrified 6 3 17
a petrified 7 0 11
were petrified 0 1 6
of petrified 2 0 5
been petrified 1 2 4
like petrified 1 0 3
is petrified 0 1 3
absolutely petrified 0 1 3
are petrified 0 1 3
and petrified 2 0 3
always petrified 0 0 2
almost petrified 2 0 2
be petrified 2 0 2
her petrified 2 0 2
in petrified 1 0 2
stood petrified 1 0 2
still petrified 1 0 2
some petrified 1 0 2
so petrified 1 0 2
there petrified 1 0 2
which petrified 1 0 2
totally petrified 1 0 1
those petrified 0 0 1
that petrified 1 0 1
justifiable petrified 0 0 1
just petrified 0 0 1
sitting petrified 0 1 1
7
she petrified 0 0 1
quietness petrified 1 0 1
Table 9. Words on the first to the right of horrified in AmE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
Horrified by 239 35 407
Horrified to 53 37 149
Horrified at 52 23 148
Horrified and 20 11 63
Horrified that 15 16 59
Horrified when 13 9 41
Horrified as 23 6 39
Horrified look 0 3 25
Horrified the 4 2 19
Horrified face 13 0 13
Horrified me 4 4 12
Horrified her 7 0 11
Horrified him 4 0 11
Horrified fascination 7 1 10
Horrified expression 6 0 8
Horrified if 2 2 8
Horrified disbelief 6 1 7
Horrified about 0 2 7
Horrified I 4 0 7
Horrified because 0 1 6
Horrified faces 5 0 6
Horrified looks 5 0 6
Horrified but 2 2 5
Horrified eyes 5 0 5
Horrified gasp 4 0 5
Horrified mother 0 2 5
Horrified of 0 2 5
Horrified reaction 1 0 5
Horrified some 1 2 5
Horrified his 4 0 4
Table 10. Words on the first to the right of horrified in BrE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
Horrified by 29 17 82
Horrified to 27 9 66
Horrified at 17 12 62
Horrified and 5 5 23
8
Horrified that 6 7 22
Horrified when 5 8 22
Horrified fascination 14 0 16
Horrified as 7 3 13
Horrified her 8 0 8
Horrified if 4 1 8
Horrified disbelief 5 1 7
Horrified face 6 0 7
Horrified eyes 6 0 7
Horrified silence 7 0 7
Horrified the 0 3 6
Horrified expression 5 0 5
Horrified look 4 0 4
Horrified him 3 0 4
Horrified reaction 2 0 4
Horrified mother 0 2 3
Horrified glance 3 0 3
Horrified but 1 1 3
Horrified cry 3 0 3
Horrified some 0 0 3
Horrified both 0 0 2
Horrified
comprehension
2 0 2
Horrified gaze 2 0 2
Horrified interest 2 0 2
Horrified me 0 0 2
Horrified many 0 0 2
Table 11. Words on the first to the left of horrified in AmE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
was horrified 108 72 324
were horrified 15 30 110
be horrified 27 18 105
a horrified 50 9 81
is horrified 40 12 80
and horrified 33 14 75
are horrified 12 11 58
the horrified 25 4 47
been horrified 20 4 32
so horrified 13 2 32
as horrified 10 8 31
looked horrified 5 12 26
of horrified 9 8 24
in horrified 18 2 22
am horrified 4 9 20
9
that horrified 5 2 16
with horrified 13 1 15
absolutely
horrified
2 3 14
looks horrified 10 1 13
her horrified 6 1 11
all horrified 4 1 10
his horrified 5 2 10
just horrified 0 0 10
it horrified 5 1 9
not horrified 6 0 9
have horrified 5 0 8
really horrified 2 0 8
too horrified 8 0 8
how horrified 3 1 7
this terrified 3 0 7
Table 12. Words on the first to the left of horrified in BrE
Collocations Fiction Newspaper The whole
Corpus
was horrified 50 26 137
be horrified 6 7 41
been horrified 11 5 33
were horrified 2 9 33
in horrified 24 0 27
a horrified 15 5 25
and horrified 8 6 22
are horrified 0 10 14
is horrified 3 7 13
so horrified 4 1 12
looked horrified 7 0 12
her horrified 7 1 10
absolutely horrified 2 1 10
of horrified 3 2 6
as horrified 4 1 6
am horrified 1 3 5
have horrified 3 1 5
it horrified 3 0 5
his horrified 4 0 5
utterly horrified 1 2 5
with horrified 5 0 5
my horrified 2 0 4
has horrified 0 4 4
one horrified 3 0 3
rather horrified 3 0 3
being horrified 0 0 3
their horrified 1 1 3
10
almost horrified 2 0 2
apparently horrified 1 0 2
clearly horrified 1 0 2