Measuring the degree of near-synonymy of Spanish verbs of putting : a multivariable corpus analysis of poner and meter

The present article proposes a corpus-based study of two near-synonymous verbs in Spanish: the (locative) verbs of putting poner and meter. Starting from the universal principle of linguistic economy, the paper aims to empirically identify potentially influencing variables that determine the native speaker’s choice between the two verbs. It is investigated whether and to what extent the verb choice is governed by a set of variables related to the nature of the placement movement itself and the characteristics of the participants taking part in the event. The difference between the near-synonyms is shown to be mainly determined by the direction of the locative movement, the semantic nature of the participants (animacy, concreteness), the reflexiveness of the event, as well as the cognitive construal of the locative event (the possibility of a container-reading)