Name:

Muhammad Arslan Sadiq

Roll No.
BSENG-18-9
(Morning)
Semester:
5th Semester
Program Name:
BS English
Session:
2018-2022 (Morning)
Course Tiltle:
Semantics and Lexical Studies
Course Code:
ENG-311
Submitted To:
Sir Abdul Haseeb

Department of English, BZU, Multan.

Collocation:
It can be defined as follows:
"A familiar grouping of words which appears together because
of their habitual use and thus creating the same
meaning is called collocation."
Collocation refers to a group of two or more words that usually
go together. A good way to think of collocation is to look at the
word collocation. Co - meaning together - location - meaning
place. Collocations are words that are located together. So,
Collocation is a group of two or more words that like to hang
out together.
 make tea - I made a cup of tea for lunch.
 do homework - I did all of my homework yesterday.

natural English... unnatural English...

the fast train the quick train
fast food quick food
a quick shower a fast shower
a quick meal a fast meal
 Semantic collocation basically forms semantics unit.
Semantic collocation are multiword expression that
are lexically, syntactically, pragmatically or
statistically idiosyncratic.
Basically concept of collocation was given by Porzig .
He used the examples of
Bite and teeth
Bark and dog

It is a particular juxtaposition of a particular word with

another words with a frequency greater than chance.

Linguistic context of Collocation:

The study of linguistic context is of interest to semantics for
two reasons

By looking at the linguists context of words we can often

distinguish between different meanings. Nida gave the example
of chair

 Has accepted a university chair(a position)

 The chair of philosophy (seat)
  The electric chair (chair for punishment)
Basically the word is same but has different meanings. These
are basically in pairs giving different meanings of the same
word.

Though in general the distribution of words may seem to be

determined by their meanings, in some cases this is not entirely
true. For example
 We use rancid for butter and addled with eggs
 We use the word pretty mostly for girls
So, we just can't say this is addled butter or a pretty boy. This
characteristics of language is found in an extreme from in the
collective words.

Firth:
The idea of collocation was first out forward by J. R. Firth in
1957. Although the word is used widely, people’s opinions are
divided when it comes to the meaning of collocation. Robins
(2000, ) argues that collocation is “the habitual association of a
word in a language with other particular words in sentences.”
Robins’ understanding of collocation agrees with Firth’s and
Halliday and Hasan’s. In Cohesion in English, Halliday and Hasan
(2001) argue that collocation, a means of cohesion, is “the co-
occurrence of lexical items that are in some way or other
typically associated with one another, because they tend to
occur in similar environments.”
For example, the word doctor implies such words as nurse,
medicine, symptom, hospital, etc. The night is closely related
with darkness.
Overlapping with Semantic Field:
Collocation, in this sense, is overlapped with the so-called
semantic field. Words occurring in collocation or in the same
semantic field exist as a group fit in a given situation. But the
presence of one word does not necessarily lead to the
occurrence of others in the group.

=> Obviously, collocation is a kind of syntagmatic relation, but

not all syntagmatic relations are called collocation. In order to
better understand collocation, we have to make a distinction
on the one hand between free combinations and collocation
and on the other between collocation and idiom. Free
combinations refer to the temporarily-made phrases based on
certain grammatical rules to express certain ideas. For example,
buy a book where buy can be replaced by sell, select, etc. and
book by ticket, pen, etc. is a free combination. The combination
is grammatically acceptable and semantically clear. The
combination of buy and book is accidental depending on the
meaning the speaker wants to express. That is, there is very
weak or actually no obvious mutual restriction and mutual
expectation between the two words buy and book.

There are different types of collocations.

For example:

 adjective + noun (“blonde hair”, not “yellow hair”)

 noun + noun (“pack of dogs”, not “group of dogs”)
 verb + noun (“leave home”, not “go away from home”)
 adverb + adjective (“beautifully behaved”, not “precisely
behaved”)
 verb + preposition, as in phrasal verbs (“work out a
solution” not “think out a solution”)
 verb + adverb (“breathe deeply” not “breathe
profoundly”)

Make and Do
Beginning with 'make' and 'do' because they provide perfect
examples of why collocation is so important. Generally, 'make'
refers to things that are made that weren't there before. 'Do'
refers to actions that we take or do such as chores.
  Collocations with 'Make'

make a cup of coffee / tea

make noise
make the bed
make a business deal
make a fuss
make sense
make time for someone

 Collocations with Do

do the laundry
do the errands
do business with someone
do a chore
do the shopping

Make and Do are perfect examples of verbs that go together

with specific nouns. A verb + noun combination that always go
together are considered collocations.
Some Common Collocation Mistakes:
1. Give test (wrong) , Take test (correct)
2. Do a call (wrong), Make a call (correct)
3. Say comment (wrong), Make comment (correct)
4. Make picture (wrong), take picture (correct)
5. Do changes (wrong), make changes (correct)
6. Abandon order (wrong), cancel order (correct)
7. Make order (wrong), place order (correct)
8. Former email (wrong), previous email (correct)
9. End studies (wrong), finish studies (correct)
10. Big Quantity (wrong), large quantity (correct)

Restrictions in Collocation:
There are three following restrictions:

1. Some Collocations are wholly based on meaning of item.

For example, we can not say "white crow" as a crow can not be
white.
Similarly, "Blue Skin Color" is also not possible.
2. Some Collocations are Based on Range.
This refers to use of words with same semantic features.
For example, we can not say "Plant has died." as a plant or
flower can "wilt" but the word "die" can't be used for it.

3. Collocations in the most strict sense.

These involve neither meaning nor range.
For example, we can use word "addled" for eggs and brains.