6
ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS AND THEIR TYPES
Rustamova Latofat
Qarshi davlat universiteti, Lingvistika kafedrasi o’qituvchisi
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14049804
Abstract.
This article studies the types of collocations and their importance in language
learning. Moreover, it deals with the literature review done in the topic of classifying
collocations into several groups.
Keywords:
collocations, idioms, word combinations, co-occurrence, strong collocations,
grammatical and lexical collocations.
Collocations and their grammatical structure are one of the discussive topics in
linguistics. Many linguistics offer a similar view on the concept of collocations and the main
focus is paid on the co-occurrence of the words. The term itself is derived from Latin word
collocate
and means to arrange or to set in order (Martynska, 2004). According to another
linguist, collocation is the combined words at the syntagmatic level. For instance, the
collocation dark night syntagmatically connected to each other. Since the meaning of the dark
and night is relatively collocated (Firth, 1957). Hill, in turn, defined collocation as a
predictable combination of the content words, e.g.,
football match, bus stop.
Modern linguistics classify the collocations into several types. Mahmoud (2005)
explained that there are only two types of them: open collocations and restricted.
1.
The nodes which can be clustered with different words are considered to be open
collocations, e.g.,
a big bag, a beautiful city, an old lady
, etc.
2.
Fixed clusters such as idioms are referred as restricted collocations, e.g.,
raining cats and
dogs, once in a blue moon.
However, other group of scientists categorize the collocations as following:
1.
Unique collocations: These are the fixed collocations whose companion words cannot be
replaced with other words, like
abiding memory, acute awareness
. Hill (2001) particularly
explored this type of combinations which involve less common and regularly quite specific or
idiomatic pairings.
2.
Strong collocations: The word combinations of this group consist of words which are
connected to each other strongly yet, they can be separated, e.g.,
heavy rain, break the law,
make a mistake
3.
Weak collocations: They can be made up of word co-occurrences which are easily
predicted. For example:
a hot day, a small street or an ancient museum.
4.
Medium-strength collocations: This term is suggested by Lewis (2001) and the words
used in the collocation can be either used alone or mostly used with their second pairs such as
have a breakfast, take an exam.
The above-mentioned classification of the collocations is made according the structure of
making them.
In addition to this, there are plenty of collocation patterns where several word groups in most
cases come together. Particularly, there 20 of them.
1.
Adjective+noun= a bad life
2.
Verb+noun= clean the room
3.
Noun+noun= TV channel
7
4.
Verb+adverb= sleep tight
5.
Adverb+adjective= absolutely gorgeous
6.
Verb+adjective+noun= examine the previous lesson
7.
Noun+verb= the dog closed in
8.
Discourse marker:
to start with
9.
Multi-word prepositional phrase:
several weeks ago
10.
Phrasal verb:
look after
11.
Adjective+preposition= jealous of
12.
Compound noun:
traffic light
13.
Binominal:
ups and downs, advantages and disadvantages
14.
Trinominal:
mind, boyd and soul,
or
here, there and everywhere
15.
Fixed phrases:
on the contrary
16.
Incomplete fixed phrase:
a type of…., better late…..
17.
Fixed expressions:
bite the bullet
18.
Semi-fixed expression:
see you later/tomorrow/on Friday
19.
Part of proverbs:
everything that glitters
20.
Part of quotation:
no matter how apart…
Furthermore, other important types of collocations are lexical and grammatical. It is
divided in these categories in order to provide clarity and structure for mastering vocabulary
usage and syntactical patterns.
Lexical collocations are those focus on nuanced meanings and are mostly directly tied to
vocabulary development. For instance,
black tea, strong coffe
or
a major difference
. In this
example the word of difference cannot be used with other words such high or low that is why
they are believed to be lexical collocations. Moreover, in many cases, verb+noun,(give a talk),
adjective+noun (bright idea), noun+verb (people live), noun+noun (a cattle of sheep),
adverb+adjective(extremely noisy) and verb+adverb(think thoroughly) forms of lexical
collocations are common.
When it comes to grammatical collocations, they relate to grammatical structures and
prepositions. For example, “catch up” uses the prepositions “on/with/to” but above is not
used with it. “To be afraid that” also follows with this rule.
In briefly, co-occurrence of two equal lexical words is decided to be lexical collocations
while, grammatical collocations deal with a lexical word, typically a noun, adjective or verb
with a grammatical word.
In conclusion, there are three big division of collocations according to linguistics.
However, it is undeniable that these classifications are also sub-divided into several groups. In
language learning and teaching, the role of collocations is crucial since, they assist and make
the speech of FLLs more natural and fluency. So as to communicate without difficulties foreign
language learners should acquire an adequate number of word combinations and collocations.
References:
1.
Firth, J. (1957). Modes of meaning. In J. Firth (Ed.), Papers in linguistics. Oxford
University press.
2.
Hill, J. (2001). Revising priorities: From grammatical failure collocationsuccess. In M.
8
Lewis (Ed.), Teaching Collocation: Further development in the lexical approach (pp. 47-69).
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3.
Lewes, M. (Ed.)/ (2000, 2001). Teaching Collocation: Further development in the lexical
approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4.
Mahmoud, A. (2005). The interlingual errors of Arab studies in the use of English
binomials. Journal of Documentation and Humanities, 15.
