Transcript ENGLISH COLLOCATIONx

Collocation
http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/collocations.htm
Why do you say deep water and not
profound water?
• “A word is known by the company it keeps”
(JR Firth)
- tremble with fear
- quiver with excitement
tremble with excitement*
quiver with fear*
There is no definable reason why we choose to say
“tremble with fear” but not “quiver with fear”. It is
simply a question of COLLOCATION.
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What is collocation?
• COLLOCATION refers to a relationship between words that frequently occur
together
• The words together can mean more than the sum of their parts (The Times of India,
disk drive)
- other examples: hot dog, mother in law
• Examples of collocations
– noun phrases like strong tea and weapons of mass destruction
– phrasal verbs like to make up, and other phrases like the rich and powerful.
• Valid or invalid?
– a stiff breeze but not a stiff wind (while either a strong breeze or a strong wind
is okay).
– Broad/bright daylight (but not narrow darkness).
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Collocational meaning (1)
• Collocational meaning refers to the associations
that a word acquires in its collocation:
e.g.
girl
boy
woman
pretty flower
garden
colour
village
boy
man
handsome
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Collocational meaning (2)
• A word can gain different collocational meaning in different
contexts:
e.g.
green on the job
green fruit
green with envy
white man
white wine
white noise
white coffee
These different meanings of “green” and “white”are
polysemous but they are caused by the different
collocation, i.e. the change in verbal context
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Criteria for collocations
• Typical criteria for collocations:
- non-compositionality
- non-substitutability
- non-modifiability.
• Collocations usually cannot be translated into other
languages word by word.
• A phrase can be a collocation even if it is not
consecutive (as in the example knock . . . door).
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Non-compositionality
• A phrase is compositional if the meaning can predicted from the
meaning of the parts.
– e.g. new companies
• A phrase is non-compositional if the meaning cannot be predicted
from the meaning of the parts
– e.g. hot dog
• Collocations are not necessarily fully compositional in that there is
usually an element of meaning added to the combination. e.g.
strong tea.
• Idioms are the most extreme examples of non-compositionality.
e.g. to hear it through the grapevine.
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Non-substitutability
• We cannot substitute near-synonyms for the
components of a collocation.
e.g. We can’t say yellow wine instead of white wine even though
yellow is as good a description of the color of white wine as
white is (it is kind of a yellowish white).
• Many collocations cannot be freely modified with
additional lexical material or through grammatical
transformations (Non-modifiability).
– e.g. white wine, but not whiter wine
– mother in law, but not mother in laws
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Linguistic Subclasses of Collocations
• Light verbs:
- Verbs with little semantic content like make, take and do.
- e.g. make lunch, take it easy,
• Verb particle constructions
- e.g. to go down
• Proper nouns
- e.g. Bill Clinton
• Terminological expressions refer to concepts and
objects in technical domains.
- e.g. Hydraulic oil filter
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Definition Of Collocation
(Corpus Literature)
• A collocation is defined as a sequence of two
or more consecutive words, that has
characteristics of a syntactic and semantic unit,
and whose exact and unambiguous meaning
or connotation cannot be derived directly
from the meaning or connotation of its
components. [Chouekra, 1988]
Word Collocations
• Collocation
– Firth: “word is characterized by the company it keeps”;
collocations of a given word are statements of the
habitual or customary places of that word.
– non-compositionality of meaning
• cannot be derived directly from its parts (heavy rain)
– non-substitutability in context
• for parts (make a decision)
– non-modifiability (& non-transformability)
• kick the yellow bucket; take exceptions to
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Collocations
• Collocations are not necessarily adjacent
• Collocations cannot be directly translated
into other languages.
Example Classes
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•
•
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Names
Technical Terms
“Light” Verb Constructions
Phrasal verbs
Noun Phrases
Linguistic Subclasses of Collocations
• Light verbs: verbs with little semantic content like make,
take, do
• Terminological Expressions: concepts and objects in
technical domains (e.g., hard drive)
• Idioms: fixed phrases
• kick the bucket, birds-of-a-feather, run for office
• Proper names: difficult to recognize even with lists
• Tuesday (person’s name), May, Winston Churchill, IBM, Inc.
• Numerical expressions
– containing “ordinary” words
• Monday Oct 04 1999, two thousand seven hundred fifty
• Verb particle constructions or Phrasal Verbs
– Separable parts:
• look up, take off, tell off
Collocation
definition: collocation defines a sequence of
words or terms that co-occur more often than
would be expected by chance.
In other words, two or more words that often
go together.
These combinations just sound "right" to native English speakers, who use
them all the time.
On the other hand, other combinations may be unnatural and just sound
"wrong".
Examples
Natural English
the fast train
fast food
a quick shower
a quick meal
Unnatural English...
the quick train
quick food
a fast shower
a fast meal
1. Adverb + Adjective:
• completely satisfied
(NOT downright satisfied)
• We entered a richly decorated room.
• Are you fully aware of the implications
of your action?
2. Adjective + Noun:
• The doctor ordered him to take regular
exercise.
• The Titanic sank on its maiden voyage.
• He was writhing on the ground in
excruciating pain.
.
3. noun + noun
• Let's give Mr. Jones a round of applause.
• The ceasefire agreement came into effect
at 11am.
• I'd like to buy two bars of soap please.
4. noun + verb
• The lion started to roar when it heard the
dog barking.
• Snow was falling as our plane took off.
5. verb + noun
• The prisoner was hanged for committing
murder.
• I always try to do my homework in the
morning, after making my bed.
• He has been asked to give a presentation
about his work.
6. verb + expression with preposition
• We had to return home because we had run
out of money.
• At first her eyes filled with horror, and then
she burst into tears.
• Their behaviour was enough to drive anybody
to crime.
7. verb + adverb
• She placed her keys gently on the table and
sat down.
• Mary whispered softly in John's ear.
• I vaguely remember that it was growing dark
when we left.
Collocation Lists -1
have
have a bath
have a good time
have a holiday
have a relationship
have lunch
have a drink
have a haircut
have a problem
have a rest
have sympathy
Collocation Lists -2
do
do business
do someone a favor
do the housework
do the washing up
do your hair
do nothing
do the cooking
do the shopping
do your best
do your homework
Collocation Lists -3
make a difference
make a mistake
make an effort
make money
make room
make a mess
make a noise
make furniture
make progress
make trouble
Collocation Lists -4
take a break
take a chance
take a look
take a rest
take a seat
take a taxi
take an exam
take notes
take someone's place
take someone's temperature
Collocation Lists -5
catch a ball
catch a bus
catch a chill
catch a cold
catch a thief
catch fire
catch sight of
catch someone's attention
catch someone's eye
catch the flu
Collocation Lists -6
pay a fine
pay attention
pay by credit card
pay cash
pay interest
pay someone a compliment
pay someone a visit pay the bill
pay the price
pay your respects
Collocation Lists -7
save electricity
save energy
save money
save one's strength
save someone a seat save someone's life
save something to a disk
save space
save time
save yourself the trouble
Collocation Lists -8
keep a diary
keep a promise
keep a secret
keep an appointment
keep calm
keep control
keep in touch
keep quiet
keep someone's place
keep the change
Teaching Vocabulary
Elementary (Do x Make)
Images 1, 2 and 3 from English Collocations in use - Cambridge