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TypeAnalyze KWIC (Keyword in Context) / concordance lines, to see the patterns in which a word or phrase occurs
Word/phrasebated breath
Corpuscoca
LLM: modelgoogle: gemini-2.0
 

Here's an analysis of the concordance lines for "bated breath," organized into the requested sections.

1. Collocates
The most frequent collocates are verbs associated with waiting or anticipation: wait, waiting, watched, watching, listen. Other frequent words include with, to see, for, the, and. Adjectives often found nearby are hushed, slavish.

2. Semantic Prosody
"Bated breath" typically carries a sense of heightened anticipation, suspense, or excitement, often tinged with anxiety. The overall prosody is generally positive or neutral when used for anticipation, but can also imply nervousness, fear, or dread depending on the context.

3. Register & Formality
The phrase leans toward a slightly formal or literary register, though it is also used in relatively informal contexts like blog posts and social media. It is not particularly common in technical registers.

4. Phraseological Patterns
The most common phraseological pattern is "wait/waiting with bated breath." Other patterns include "watching with bated breath," "listening with bated breath," and "the bated breath of..." The phrase is essentially a fixed expression.

5. Grammatical Patterns
"Bated breath" most commonly functions as part of an adverbial phrase modifying a verb of waiting or watching (e.g., "waiting with bated breath"). It also appears as a noun phrase following a preposition ("with bated breath").

6. Recurring Sentence Structures
A common sentence structure involves a subject (person or group), a verb of waiting or watching, "with bated breath," and often a clause indicating what they are waiting for (e.g., "They waited with bated breath to see...").

7. Pragmatic Function / Discourse Role
The phrase is used to emphasize the intensity of anticipation or suspense. It can also function to engage the audience by implying that they are also experiencing the same anticipation. In some cases, it's used ironically or humorously.

8. Frequency & Dispersion
The phrase appears frequently in the corpus, showing relatively even dispersion across different types of text, from news articles and blog posts to fiction and social media. The frequency suggests it is a fairly common idiom.

9. Thematic Context (Topics)
Common thematic contexts include: political events, sports, entertainment (movies, TV shows), personal relationships, news events, and suspenseful situations. The phrase is used in contexts where the outcome is uncertain and of significance to the observers.