A Comparative Analysis of Last and Final: A Corpus-based Analysis
Namkil Kang

Abstract
The main goal of this article is to provide a comparative analysis of the adjectives last and final in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). A major point to note is that the adjectives last and final indicate the same property in two genres, whereas they indicate a different property in six genres. This in turn implies that last is 33.33% the same as final in the genre analysis of the COCA. Talking about the distance between last and final, the former is the nearest to the latter in the blog genre, thereby indicating a high degree of similarity in the blog genre. The COCA shows that last year is the most widely used one in America, followed by last week, last night, last time, and last month, in that order. The COCA further shows that final decision is the most frequently used one in America, followed by final word, final days, and final report, in descending order. Finally, this article argues that 5.88% of sixty eight nouns occur with both last and final. It can thus be concluded that the adjectives last and final exhibit a very low similarity.

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