Corpus-based analysis of the partial synonyms "oppress, repress, suppress" with regard to their contextual usage

The object of this analysis is the triplet of (ostensible) synonyms oppress, repress, and suppress, all of which express an action of subjection and therefore share at least a part of their meaning. Also, all three of them are (in most contexts) commonly translated into German as 'unterdrücken'. The question is to what extent they may be called synonymous.

In order to answer this question, the British National Corpus was taken as an empirical basis.
Compiled corpora offer the advantage of ...