英語シノニム研究 : remain とstay

The objective of this paper is to explore semantic and collocational differences between remain and stay employing the large-scale corpus, WordbanksOnline. Although both remain and stay are used to convey that a subject in a sentence is in a particular state or condition, their usages are different from each other in terms of subjects and subjective complements. First, remain takes both animate and inanimate subjects, while stay more typically takes animate subjects. Second, remain is often followed by words containing the prefix un- like unchanged, unresolved, or unknown, or by words which imply unfavorable situations such as problem, threat, or issue, while stay tends to be followed by words or phrases which imply favorable situations as in alive, healthy, afloat, or out of trouble. Furthermore, when remain and stay are both used with people as the subject, remain is followed by expressions which are controlled by the subject (e.g. silent, committed, or anonymous) or not controlled by the subject (e.g. in custody, or in critical condition). Stay, however, is usually followed by expressions which are controlled by the subject (e.g. focused, tuned, or in touch).