The Interplay of Synonymy and Polysemy

al
suelo… 
(CdE:19-N, Cuba:CubaNet:98Sep15) 
‘the administrator threw himself on the ground’ 
(179) …el encapuchado se 
ARROJÓ
al
suelo
…
 
(CdE:19-F, Miramar: La gesta del pez) 
‘the masked man threw himself on the ground’ 
(180) …Pancho y yo nos 
ECHAMOS
al suelo. 
(CdE:19-F, Los pies de barro) 
 
‘Pancho and me threw ourselves on the ground’ 
 
 
(CdE:19-F, Señales: una intrahistoria) 
(181) …ella se 
TIRÓ
al suelo
como si hubiera sido atropellada… 
‘She threw herself on the ground as if she had been run over’ 
Despite this ability to appear with any 
throw-
verb, the collostructional analysis seems 
to indicate that if a speaker must choose one verb to join with 
suelo 
‘ground’, he is more 
likely to choose 
tirar
above all the others. In other words, the combination of 
tirar 
and 
al 
suelo
(with a p-value of 1.27E-43) is routinized. We do not necessarily have to argue that 
tirar
means ‘throw to the ground’ but that it can be used to express this. And it is used more 
frequently to express this compared to the other 
throw-
verbs. 
4.3.4 Questionnaire Results 
A questionnaire (§3.3) was constructed and administered in order to test 
generalizations discussed in §4.3.1 and §4.3.3. In the 400-sentence corpus we find that 
echar
had more sentences with a 
DIRECTIONAL
and fewer cases without a 
DIRECTIONAL
. The 
statistical tests show that 
echar
’s behavior is statistically different from the other verbs. The 
goal with the questionnaire is to determine whether this preference for 
DIRECTIONALS 
applies 
to the 
THROWING 
schema, and therefore indicates further differences in the central schema 
between 
echar 
and the other 
throw-
verbs. In the test, sentences were paired, one with a 
DIRECTIONAL
and one without a 
DIRECTIONAL
, in order to see if this forced a change in the 
choice of verb.

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The collostructional analysis shows that 
lanzar 
highly attracts the noun 
aire 
‘air’, but 
none of the other nouns that take part in the 
THROWING 
schema. This might imply that 
lanzar
prefers to express upward motion, especially considering that it does not attract either 
piso 
‘floor’ or 
suelo 
‘ground’, which can be understood as expressing downward motion. 
Sentences in the questionnaire were paired, such that one expressed upward motion and 
another expressed downward motion.
The results of the questionnaire are shown in table 15. The table shows the total 
number of times that a given verb was written in a sentence in each category. In other words, 
arrojar
was written as a response 18 times in sentences that express upward motion. A chi-
square test was run on the entire matrix. The X-squared is 138.85, the df is 9, and the p-value 
is less
26
than 2.20E-16.
The Cramer’s V (0.2136) shows a small-to-medium effect size (King 
& Minium 2008:327-329).