Tài liệu Classification of collocation

2.2. Classifications of collcations Since different researchers hold different views and approaches to collocation, different aspects of collocation have been examined and hence, resulting different features, including the classfications. The most common classification is based on the specialized BBI Dictionary (Benson et al., 2010), which divides collocations into two major groups. The first group is grammatical collocations, which is a combination of “a dominant word and a preposition or grammatical structure” (Benson et al., 2010, p. xix). The dominant word can be a noun, an adjective or a verb and the grammatical structure includes to-infinitive, thatclause. There are eight types of grammatical collocations as introduced in the table below. N o 1 2 3 Typ e G1 G2 G3 Pattern Examples noun + preposition noun + to + infinitive noun + that clause change in, ability in/ at an attempt to do it fact that, we reach an agreement that 4 5 6 G4 G5 G6 on purpose, in fact bored with, good at ready to go, easy to learn 7 G7 preposition + noun adjective + preposition adjective + to + infinitive adjective + that clause he was delighted that…, She was afraid that… Table 1. Types of grammatical collocations (adapted from Benson et al., 2010) The eighth type (G8) contain 19 English verb patterns, hence, be presented in the table below. N o 1 Typ e A Pattern Example She sent the book to him. =She sent him the book. I explained the problem to him. D verb + direct object + to + indirect object = verb + indirect object + direct object verb + direct object + to + indirect object (no movement for dative) verb + direct object + for + indirect object = verb + indirect object + direct object verb + preposition + object 2 B 3 C 4 5 6 7 8 9 E F G H I verb + to + infinitive verb + bare infinitive verb + V-ing verb + object + to + infinitive verb + object + bare infinitive She continued to write. Mary had better go. They enjoy watching TV. We forced them to leave. She heard them leave. 10 J verb + object + V-ing He felt his heart beating. 11 K verb + a possessive + V-ing I cannot imagine their stealing apples. She bought a shirt for her husband. = She bought her husband a shirt. We will adhere to the plan. 12 13 L M 14 N 15 O verb + that clause verb + object + to be + adjective/ past participle/ noun/ pronoun verb + object + adjective/ past participle/ noun/ pronoun verb + object 1 + object 2 I confirmed that I was wrong. We consider her to be welltrained. She dyed her hair red. The teachers asked the students questions. 16 P verb + object + adverbial You carry yourself well. 17 Q verb (+ object) + wh-word She accept what I want. 18 R it + verb + (to + infinitive)/ that clause It surprised me that our offer was rejected. 19 S verb + predicate adjective/ noun She was a teacher. Table 2. G8 Grammatical collocations (adapted from Benson et al., 2010) The second group of collocations is lexical ones, which, on the contrarty to grammatical ones, do not consist of prepositions, infinitives or clauses. Common lexical collocations consist of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. The seven types of lexical collocations are introduced as follow. N Typ Pattern Examples o e 1 L1 verb (donation creation or activation) + make an impression, compose music noun/pronoun/(prepositional phrase) 2 L2 verb (meaning eradication or revoke a license, demolish a house nullification) + noun 3 L3 adjective + noun a crushing defeat, strong tea 4 L4 noun + verb album comes out, bombs explode 5 L5 noun + noun gallery space, a pack of dogs 6 L6 adverb + adjective deeply absorbed 7 L7 verb + adverb appreciate sincerely, argue heatedly Table 3. Types of lexical collocations (adapted from Benson et al., 2010) Other researchers (Lewis, 1997; Hill, 2000; McCarthy & O’ Dell, 2008) have a distinct way to categorize collocations into 4 types. Fixed collocations or Idiomatic collocations or Unique collocations are extremely strong collocations that they cannot be modified, e.g. play it by ear. Strong collocations are combinations in which words are closely attached with each other, for example, “I felt deliriously happy”. In this example, deliriously means extremely happy and rarely go with words other than happy. Medium strength collocations are words that co-occur more frequently than weak collocations, e.g. conduct a test. Weak collocations consist of words that can combine with many other words, e.g. many things can be long or short. Nesselhauf (2003), together with Bahns (1993), categorizes collocations into two major groups, namely, restricted collocations and free collocations. Restricted collocations Accordingly, many linguists and researchers tend to classify multi-word units into the following three categories (e.g.; Lewis 2001; Cowie 1993; Bahns 1993; Nesselhauf 2003;), though the termi- nology used by them might be slightly different: Free collocations (also referred to as open collocations or free word combina- tions) consist of items used in their literal senses and freely substitutable, such as open the gate, a nice car. This category seems to include all possible and semantically natural combinations. Notice that saying a collocation is a free one does not mean that there is no restriction at all. The major difference between free collocations and restricted ones is that the restriction for the former is a result of the semantic properties of the two components concerned, whereas the restriction for the latter is “a some- what arbitrary convention of the language” (Nesselhauf 2003: 225). Restricted collocations (also referred to as fixed combinations or collocations) usually have one item used in a non-literal sense, often a specialized, or figura- tive sense, and the other used in its normal meaning such as run a company, bit- terly contested. Woolard (2000, p.29) limited the term collocation to lexical collocation only for two reasons. Firstly, it helps the student understand the term clearly and differently. Another reason is that “it avoids overlap with traditional vocabulary exercises”, which are the grammatical collocation with prepositions. Therefore, the present study follows the classfications of collocations by Benson et al. (2010) in The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English and focuses solely on lexical collocations.