Chapter 1 the study of collocations

 
Table 2.  Examples of structural patterns of restricted collocations in English 
Pattern   Example 
V+(art)+(A)+N 
 
'command devotion', 'give a loud laugh' 
V+prep+(art)+(A)+N 
'leap to a sudden conclusion', 'leap to a decision' 
A+N 
   'cogent 
argument' 
V+Adv 
 
 
'take off', 'take away', 'sit down' 
I(Intensifier)+A   'dead 
tired', 'dead drunk', 'stark naked' 
Note: V = Verb, art = Article, A = Adjective, N = Noun, prep = Preposition,  
Adv = Adverb, I = Intensifier 
 
 
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Aisenstadt also reports that restricted collocations have not yet been 
studied yet adequately as a specific linguistic phenomenon, and therefore they 
have not received a proper treatment in lexicography: some of them are listed 
alongside free word combinations and others are listed in dictionaries of idioms 
as idioms (Aisenstadt 1981:53).  Aisenstadt concludes that a study of restricted 
collocations is of great importance for applied linguistics, translators, 
lexicographers, language teachers and students. 
 
The structure-based studies make clear that collocational restrictions do 
not apply only to lexical words (as the other two approaches assume) but also 
to grammatical words.  Furthermore, studies such as Jones and Sinclair (1974), 
Renouf and Sinclair (1992), and Aisenstadt (1979) show that it is possible to 
study collocations using structural patterns.  Thus, there is no need for the 
debate among linguists over whether collocations should be described using 
lexical analysis, or semantic rules and/or grammar rules.  It is possible that by 
defining structurally and isolating a particular collocational pattern and 
examining its frequency, variability and systematicity in a language corpus, the 
notion of collocation could be enriched. 
 
Benson, Benson and Ilson (1986a) compiled the BBI Combinatory 
Dictionary of English, a dictionary of English collocations.  The difference 
between the BBI and the ECD, examined earlier on, is that the BBI includes 
more lexical items and a less detailed grammatical and lexical treatment.  The 
BBI writers do not  include in their dictionary  "free combinations"  that are 
predictable and thus not needed, e.g. the collocation of the verb 'to destroy' 
 
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with a large number of nouns denoting physical objects like 'bridge', 'house', 
'road' etc. (Benson 1985:66; Ilson 1985; Benson et al. 1986a).  Fifteen different 
types of "essential grammatical and lexical recurrent word combinations" are 
defined and included in the BBI dictionary for "general use" (Benson et al. 
1986a:7).  The BBI distinguishes between grammatical and lexical collocations 
in the following way: a grammatical collocation is a phrase that consists of a 
dominant word (verb, noun, adjective) and a preposition or grammatical 
structure such as an infinitive or clause.  Lexical collocations normally do not 
contain prepositions, infinitives, or clauses.  Typical lexical collocations consist 
of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs.  Examples of grammatical and lexical 
collocational patterns are given in Table 3.