A study on the semantic features of english collocations containing the verb “make” with reference to their vietnamese equivalents

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

BUI THI KIM ANH

A STUDY ON THE SEMANTIC FEATURES OF
ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS CONTAINING THE VERB
“MAKE” WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA
QUÁN NGỮ CHỨA ĐỘNG TỪ “MAKE” CÙNG NGHĨA
TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

M.A. THESIS
Field: English Language
Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2016

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Front hard cover
Back hard cover

BUI THI KIM ANH

ENGLISH LINGUIAGE

2014 - 2016

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

BUI THI KIM ANH
A STUDY ON THE SEMANTIC FEATURES OF
ENGLISH COLLOCATIONS CONTAINING THE VERB
“MAKE” WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA
QUÁN NGỮ CHỨA ĐỘNG TỪ “MAKE” CÙNG NGHĨA
TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG TRONG TIẾNG VIỆT)

M.A. THESIS
Field: English Language
Code: 60220201
Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Van Dong

Hanoi, 2016

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project
report entitled A study on the semantic features of English collocations
containing the verb “make” with reference to their Vietnamese
equivalents submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

degree of Master in English Language. Except where the reference is
indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due
acknowledgement in the text of the thesis.
Hanoi, 2016

Bui Thi Kim Anh

Approved by
SUPERVISOR

(Signature and full name)

Date:……………………
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For the accomplishment of this thesis, first of all, I am greatly
indebted to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Van Dong, who has kindly
and patiently guided me throughout the process of the study. Her
insights, advice, support, and encouragement have made the process of
the study not only precious but also a meaningful one.
Besides, I would like to thank all my respectable lecturers for
teaching me all the courses that I have taken at Hanoi Open University.
I would also like to thank all my colleagues who made great
contribution to my research. Without their assistance and participation,
this study would not have been successful.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to my beloved parents, husband and
my children for their love and support which have enabled me to
overcome all the challenges during my study.

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ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to investigate the semantic features
of English collocations verb “make” with reference to their Vietnamese
equivalents, especially in the novel “Adventure of Tom Sawyer” by
Mark Twain.
The study is aimed at three points: (1) finding the semantic
features of the ‘make’ collocations in English and those of the verb ‘làm’
collocations in Vietnamese, (2) finding the similarities and differences
between the ‘make’ collocations in English and those of the verb ‘làm’
collocations in Vietnamese and (3) providing some recommendations for
the teaching and learning as well as translation of ‘make’ collocations
and ‘làm’ collocations into the target language.
This study was designed as a descriptive research with the method
of contrastive and componential analysis. According to the data analysis,
the results of the study show that the verb ‘make’ and the verb ‘làm’ in
collocations coincide in their general meanings. However, the verb ‘làm’
in Vietnamese collocations seems to have much more meanings than that
in English collocations.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
SLA: Second language acquisition
E.g: Example
EFL: English foreign language

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 2.1. Collocations vs idioms free word combinations.
Table 4.1. Semantic features of Make in English and Vietnamese.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality
Acknowledgments
Abstract
List of abbreviations
List of tables and figures
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality
Acknowledgments
Abstract
List of abbreviations
List of tables and figures
Chapter1. INTRODUCTION............................................................ 11
1.1. Rationale for the study .................................................................. 11
1.2. Aims of the study .......................................................................... 13
1.3. Objectives of the
study……………………………………………..5
1.4. Scope of the study ......................................................................... 14
1.5. Significance of the study ............................................................... 14

1.6. Structure of the study .................................................................... 15
Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................... 17
2.1. Review of the Previous Studies ..................................................... 17
2.2. Review of theoretical background. ................................................ 19
2.2.1. Semantic features. ...................................................................... 19
2.2.2. A Brief Description of Verbs ..................................................... 20
2.2.3. Component of Meaning.............................................................. 22
2.2.3.1. Grammatical meaning ............................................................. 22
2.2.3.2. Lexical meaning ...................................................................... 22
2.2.4. Transference of Meaning ........................................................... 22
2.2.4.1. Metaphor ................................................................................. 22
2.2.4.2. Metonymy ............................................................................... 22
2.2.5. English Collocations .................................................................. 23
2.2.5.1. Definition of Collocations ....................................................... 23
2.2.5.2. Types of collocations .............................................................. 25
2.2.5.3. Characteristics of Collocations ................................................ 29
Chapter 3. METHODOLOGY.......................................................... 35
3.1. Research-governing orientations ................................................... 35
3.1.1. Research design ......................................................................... 35
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3.1.2. Descriptive research design definition ........................................ 35
3.2. Research method ........................................................................... 36
3.2.1. Contrastive analysis method ....................................................... 36
3.2.2. Componential analysis method................................................... 36
3.3. Test description ............................................................................. 37
3.4. Method of the analysis .................................................................. 38
3.5. Summary....................................................................................... 38
Chapter 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...................................... 39

4.1. Data results and analysis ............................................................... 39
4.2. Semantic Features of the Verb “Make” in English Collocations.... 44
4.2. Semantic Features of the Verb ‘Làm’ in Vietnamese Collocations 50
4.3. Similarities .................................................................................... 56
4.4. Differences.................................................................................... 57
Chapter 5. CONCLUSION ............................................................... 65
5.1. Summary of major findings........................................................... 65
5.2. Pedagogical implications of the study ........................................... 65
5.2.1. For EFL Learning in general ...................................................... 65
5.2.2. Implications for learning vocabulary .......................................... 66
5.2.2. For Translation from English to Vietnamese and Vice Versa ..... 68
5.3.Limitation of the study ................................................................... 69
5.4.Suggestion for further study ........................................................... 70
REFERENCES .................................................................................. 72

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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the background of the study, reasons for
choosing the topic, statements of the problem, objectives of the study,
significance of the study, and outline of the study.
1.1. Rationale for the study
Nowadays, English has become one of the most important
international languages in the world. The number of people who
communicate and use it as the first language has been increasing day by
day. British linguist Wilkins (1972:111) once stated “While without
grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be
conveyed”. This argument has been supported by many researchers in

the field of second language acquisition (SLA) who have emphasized the
significance of vocabulary and agreed that vocabulary is equally, if not
more, important than language structure in language acquisition.
Although collocation has become the subject of a linguistic study
only recently, it arouses a growing interest in numerous linguists and is
defined in various ways. Accordingly, there is no exhaustive and
uniform definition or categorization of collocation. Therefore, it tends to
be one of the most problematic and important area of vocabulary,
especially for second language learners. Hill (1999:5) goes so far as to
suggest: “We are familiar with the concept of communicative
competence, but perhaps we should add the concept of collocation
competence to our thinking”. He also claims that non-native speakers
have problems “not because of faulty grammar but a lack of
collocations”. Along with Hill, McCarthy (1990:12) claims that
“collocation deserves to be a central aspect of vocabulary study.” These
pieces of evidence done can show the great importance of collocation in
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acquisition of a language. The author would like to investigate the
possibility of combining words into fixed expressions.
According to Palmer (1965:1), “learning a language is, to a very
large degree, how to operate the verbal forms, the pattern and the
structure of the verb in that language”. There is a question which need to
be answered is that how verbs collocate with other classes of word. A
verb can collocate with a noun, a preposition, an adjective or even
another verb. Verb phrases are then created. Investigating the
combinations of verbs must be necessary for improving the students’
knowledge and lessening their difficulties.
However, the knowledge of collocations is vast so this study only

focuses on the semantic features of English collocations containing the
verb ‘make’ with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents. We choose
the study the semantic features of the ‘make’ collocations because the
verb ‘make’ is one of the most commonly used verbs in English and
when it collocates with other words, Vietnamese learners often feel
confused, especially about meaning of the verb ‘make’ collocations.
Besides, a great number of teachers have unsuitable way of teaching
collocation due to the limited awareness of its importance, leading to the
limitation in using collocation of the students. Without the knowledge of
collocations, students are not bound to approach the native-like level of
proficiency in language. In fact, students have not paid appropriate
attention to learning collocations. The collocations with ‘make’ is very
popular in English, however, students still have difficulty in using them.
To solve this problem, learners should be fully aware of the importance
of collocations, raising the awareness of teaching and using collocations.
For these reasons, I decided to choose this as the theme for my
MA thesis. The study is so entitled “A study on the semantic features of

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English collocations containing the verb “make” with reference to their
Vietnamese equivalents”.
1.2. Aims of the study
This study aims at investigating the semantic features of English
collocations verb “make” with reference to their Vietnamese
equivalents. This study is carried out to serve major purposes:
The study is aimed at:
+ Finding the semantic features of the ‘make’ collocations in
English and those of the verb ‘làm’ collocations in Vietnamese.

+ Finding the similarities and differences between the ‘make’
collocations in English and those of the verb ‘làm’ collocations in
Vietnamese.
+ Providing some recommendations for the teaching and learning as
well as translation of ‘make’ collocations and ‘làm’ collocations
into the target language.
To fully achieve these aims, the study should answer the following
questions:
+ What are the semantic features of each verb in collocations and
how are they similar and different in terms of these features?
+ What are the implications of the study for EFL teaching/ learning
and translation?
1.3. Objectives of the study
To achieve the above-mentioned aims, the following objectives
can be put forward:
(i) Pointing out syntactic features of English collocations of the
verb MAKE and those of the verb ‘làm’ collocations in
Vietnamese.

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(ii) Figuring out semantic features of English collocations of the
verb MAKE and those of the verb ‘làm’ collocations in
Vietnamese.
(iii) Suggesting possible implications for teaching and learning
English collocations of the verb MAKE.
1.4. Scope of the study
The study focuses on analyzing semantic features of English
collocations containing the verb ‘make” then Vietnamese equivalents of

collocations of make will be later discussed through analyzing EnglishVietnamese examples in different context. It is better if English
collocations with more verbs are analyzed and totalized, contributing
considerably to English learning and teaching in Vietnam. This study,
therefore, suggests them to learn about English collocations with
different types of parts of speech and discover the rules to make use of
them. The effects will be vital to students and should be encouraged to
be applied at school as well as for self-learners of English.
1.5. Significance of the study
The study is carried out basically through the descriptive and
methods. The descriptive method is employed to give in depth and
detailed description semantic features of collocations of lexical verb
“make” in English. The work starts with a review of existing study
results on collocations to provide a better understanding of the topic. By
providing an innovative approach to learning English lexical terms, the
author expects to change how student learn English words as well as
how teachers change their traditional methods of teaching vocabulary.
This study’s implications are to deal with these issues in hope that will
help students overcome their troubles.

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With the aim of investigating the semantic features of English
collocations verb “make” with reference to their Vietnamese
equivalents, it could be a considerable contribution to different groups:
Firstly, the result of the research is expected to give a positive
result for the readers so that they will have a deeper understanding of
collocations “make” found in this novel as well as enrich their
vocabulary and apply those collocations in their writing and speaking
activities. The verb ‘make’ and the verb ‘làm’ are highly frequently used

for Vietnamese learners, therefore, knowing semantic features of these
two verbs in collocations as well as their similarities and differences can
facilitate the learners’ process of learning vocabulary.
Secondly, this research would be beneficial to the novelists who
will get important information about collocation expressions. Therefore,
this research is expected to make a useful contribution in helping
novelist to choose the collocation expressions which are easily
comprehended by the readers of the novel.
The third contribution is the formulation of five implications for
teaching collocations in general. As a result, these implications can be
applied as a general framework or model for teaching all collocations.
This is extremely significant for EFL learners in particular.
Last but not least, since there is no study conducted to investigate
the collocation “make” in our school context; hence, this study may be a
springboard for those who want to do further research in the same area.
1.6. Structure of the study
The study is divided into 5 chapters:
Chapter I: Introduction presents the rationale, aims, objectives, scope,
significance and the structure of thesis.
Chapter II: Literature Review features the review of related literature
and the theoretical backgrounds for the study, in which the collocation
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and the theory of verbs will be discussed. The verb “make” will be also
identified in terms of grammatical characteristics in structures related to
make. Also, this chapter presents and describes concrete cases of
collocations with the lexical verb make with their Vietnamese
equivalents in corresponding contexts.
Chapter III: Methodology presents the research governing orientations

and the research methods used in implementing and developing the
study. This chapter focuses on research questions, research setting,
approaches to investigate the research problem, the principles,
techniques to collect and analyze data, etc.
Chapter IV: Findings and Discussion introduces the results of the
survey which semantic features of English collocations containing the
verb ‘make’ with reference to their Vietnamese equivalents. The
research implications for learning English as a foreign language can be
found as the last part of this chapter.
Chapter V: Conclusion provides concluding remarks. Summarizes
major findings of the study, points out the limitations and proposes some
suggestions for further research.

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Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
The second chapter covers review of related literature. It contains
review of previous studies and review of the theoretical studies.
2.1. Review of the Previous Studies
There are some previous studies related to the analysis of
collocation expressions. The descriptions of the previous research
findings are as follows.
As students of other languages, Vietnamese students also meet
difficulties when acquiring English collocations. In a conference at the
University of Western Sydney, Trinh (1995) mentioned to collocation, in
particular English collocation, particularly those for whom English is
their second and weaker language. The results showed that there were
very few syntactic errors, and that the examiners probably have treated

syntactic and grammatical errors as one area of error only.
The author also realized that the errors being made were a result
of the candidates' lack of knowledge of English collocations, whether
they are grammatical or lexical. Moreover, in the frame of M.A. thesis at
Vietnam National University, Hanoi – University of Languages and
International Studies, there are also studies of collocations. Works by
Chu Thị Phương Vân (2005), Lê Thanh Hà (2007) and Đào Thị Ngọc
Nguyên (2007) are some of typical examples. They are all interested in
the collocation issue. They investigated the collocations definition,
classification and the students’ knowledge about collocations.
Additionally, by collecting and analyzing abundant examples of
MAKE in English collocations, as well as their Vietnamese equivalents,
Minh (2010) had successfully compared the two verbs, one in English
and one in the other language, regarding their semantic features. In more
details, she divided the meanings of MAKE into several sub-groups and
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provided translations for these different meanings of MAKE; however,
she chose only one meaning for the Vietnamese word, LÀM. For the
second part, pure explanations of meanings were given, whilst for the
former one, every single meaning was accompanied by their
corresponding Vietnamese translations. Then, she stated her final
conclusions, both about similarities and differences in the finding
section, but in my opinion there are still some unclear points in her work
and there is still a necessity to solve them more cautiously in this study.
Chu Thị Phương Vân (2005) analyzed the collocations of one
English textbook on Electronics and Telecommunications. Pham Thi
Nga (2012) carried out common errors related to the usage of “do” and
“make” collocations by English non – major students at Thai Nguyen

university of economics and business administration. However, a
detailed investigation into the collocations of lexical verb “make” has
not been taken. There has neither been any works that gave the insights
to the comparison between English collocations and Vietnamese ones. In
the frame of an M.A. thesis, the author would like to contribute a very
minor investigation focusing on the collocation “Verb + noun” (lexical
collocation) with the verb “make” in order to facilitate students when
dealing with these combinations of words. Also, the Vietnamese
equivalents are given to compare and contrast.
Once again, the author has to repeat that it is true that little work
has been conducted towards MAKE and its collocations so far. Plus,
when it comes to studies about their Vietnamese equivalents, it is even
harder to find such topic-related work. It is also clear that MAKE studies
have not been analyzed systematically, as has been pointed out in the
previous paragraph. The author, as a result, makes an attempt to
investigate both syntactic and semantic features of English collocations
with the verb MAKE and their Vietnamese equivalents with regards to
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methods, implications and findings in comparison with other earlier
studies as cited previously. Therefore, the researcher decided to conduct
a research to find out how many collocations containing the verb “make”
exactly found in the book, what types of collocation expressions, what
the dominant types of collocation used, and what kind of problems
existing in understanding collocation expression.
2.2. Review of theoretical background.
2.2.1. Semantic features.
Semantics (from Ancient Greek: σηµαντικός sēmantikós,"signific
ant") is the study of meaning - in language, programming languages,

formal

logics,

and semiotics.

It

focuses

on

the

relationship

between signifiers - like words, phrases, signs, and symbols - and what
they stand for, their denotation.
Semantics is a branch of linguistics dealing with the meaning of
words, phrases and sentences, however, contrary to pragmatics it does
not analyze the intended speaker meaning, or what words denote on a
given occasion, but the objective, conventional meaning. Additionally, it
is concerned with the conceptual meaning and not the associative
meaning.
Richards et al define semantic features (semantic components) as
“the smallest units of meaning in a world” which may be describe as “a
combination of semantic features”. However, Crystal points out that
semantic features are minimal contrastive elements of a word’s meaning.
According to Kamil Wiśniewski, Aug.12th, 2007, semantic
features are considered basic elements which enable the differentiation

of meaning of words. This view is also shared by Cornelius Puschmann:
“Semantic feature analysis allows us to decompose words into bundles
of attributes” and “semantic features can be used to describe differences

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between antonyms, superordinates and their hyponyms, and near
synonyms”.
E.g:
GRAPE

DOG

PRAIRIE DOG

ANIMATE

ANIMATE

ANIMAL

FRUIT

ANIMAL

RODENT

EDIBLE

HUMAN

DOG

HAPPY

SAD

THRILLED

EMOTION

EMOTION

EMOTION

POSITIVE

POSITIVE

POSITIVE

In short, the analysis of word meaning is often seen as a process of
breaking down the sense of word into its minimal components, which
are known as semantic features or sense components.
2.2.2. A Brief Description of Verbs
The verb is king in English. The shortest sentence contains a verb.
We can make a one-word sentence with a verb, for example: "Stop!" We
cannot make a one-word sentence with any other type of word.
A verb is often defined as a word which shows action or state of

being. The verb is the heart of a sentence - every sentence must have a
verb. Recognizing the verb is often the most important step in
understanding the meaning of a sentence. In the sentence ‘The dog bit
the man’, ‘bit’ is the verb and the word which shows the action of the
sentence. In the sentence ‘The man is sitting on a chair’, even though
the action doesn't show much activity, ‘sitting’ is the verb of the
sentence. In the sentence ‘She is a smart girl’, there is no action but a
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state of being expressed by the verb ‘is’. The word ‘be’ is different from
other verbs in many ways but can still be thought of as a verb.
A verb always has a subject. E.g: in the sentence ‘John speaks
English’ John is the subject and speaks is the verb. In simple terms,
therefore, we can say that verbs are words that tell us what a subject
does or is; they describe:
- action (Ram plays football.)
- state (Anthony seems kind.)
According to Jack C. Richards et al (1992:398), in English, a word
is a verb when it satisfied these following criteria:
- Occur as part of the predicate of a sentence;
- Carries markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspect,
person, number, and mood; and.
- Refers to an action or state.
Almost verbs in English change in form in accordance with tense,
mood, person, etc. for example: ‘Lower fares make it advantageous to
travel in winter.’; ‘I first made his acquaintance in 2006’; ‘Please stop
making that noise annoying’, etc.
In Vietnamese, verbs are one of the two fundamental parts of
speech like nouns. Verbs in Vietnamese also play an important role in

vocabulary as well as in forming sentences. Contrary to verbs in English,
verbs in Vietnamese do not have the concord with other parts of speech.
In other words, they are not affected by number, person, gender, mood,
voice, and tense. And in Vietnamese, verbs can combine with other
auxiliary components to indicate tense, aspect like ‘sắp’, ‘sẽ’, ‘đã’ ,
continuation like ‘còn’, ‘vẫn’, etc.
There are many ways to classify verbs, however, in this thesis, the
classification of verbs into transitive and intransitive verbs shall be

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applied, which would be convenient to compare the two verbs “make” in
English and “làm” in Vietnamese.
2.2.3. Component of Meaning
2.2.3.1. Grammatical meaning
Lyons [18, p.52] points out that “Different forms of the same
lexeme will generally, though not necessarily, differ in meaning: they
will differ in respect of their grammatical meaning.”
2.2.3.2. Lexical meaning
Baker [2, p.12] states that “The lexical meaning of a word or
lexical unit may be thought as the specific value it has in a particular
linguistic system and the ‘personality’ it acquires through usage within
that system.” And “it is just the lexical meaning it is the most
outstanding individual property of the word.” And the lexical meaning
of the word can be classified in to denotational meaning and connotative
meaning.
Denotative meaning or Denotation
As defined in the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics [12], denotation is a part of the meaning of a word

or phrase that relates it to phenomena in the real world or in a fictional
or possible world.
Connotative meaning or Connotation
In [13,p.57] Amvela and Jackson point out that “con notations
constitute additional properties of lexemes, e.g: poetic, slang, baby
language, biblical, casual, formal, humorous, legal, literary, rhetorical.”
2.2.4. Transference of Meaning
2.2.4.1. Metaphor
“Metaphor is the transference of meaning (name) from one object
to another, based on similarity between two objects.” [Nguyen Hoa]
2.2.4.2. Metonymy
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Harris thinks that metonymy is another form of metaphor in which
the thing chosen for the metaphorical image is closely associated with
the subject with which it is to be compared.
2.2.5. English Collocations
2.2.5.1. Definition of Collocations
All languages have a large numbers of collocations, and linguists
have defined collocation in different ways.
There are various definitions of collocation. It will be noted that
forming a precise definition is difficult because different linguists have
different and conflicting definitions as what Bahns (1993:57) says:
“Regrettably, collocation is a term which is used and understood in
many different ways”. Most of the researchers who define collocation
agree that it is a lexical unit consisting of a cluster of two or three words.
Firth is widely regarded as the father of this term and we can see that
most of the definitions are paraphrases of Firth’s (1957:183) definition
that collocations are “words in habitual company”. This is a quite

general definition. Collocation, then, refers to expressions in which
individual words habitually go together. In the case of verb, for instance,
the verb make goes with some words and the verb do with other words:
E.g: We made an agreement. (NOT did an agreement)
I did my homework. (NOT made my homework)
The definition of collocation would be made clearer by his
followers - Sinclair (1966) and Halliday (1966). For Halliday,
collocations are examples of word combinations; he maintains that
collocation cuts across grammar boundaries. Sinclair (1966) introduces
the following terminology: an item whose collocations are studies is
called a “node ; the number of relevant lexical items on each side of a

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node is defined as a “span and those items which are found within the
span are called “collocates .
The term collocation was first introduced by Firth (1957), a
British linguist. He was the first person to look lexis at its syntagmatic,
left-to-right unfolding of language. According to Firth (1957), the
collocation is defined as a combination of words associated with each
other, for example to take a photo, to do homework, to play football...
The term “collocation” has it origin in the Latin verb collocate which
means to set in order/to arrange.
The concept of collocations was first identified by Palmer (1981)
as a string of words that must or should be learned or is best or most
conveniently learned as an integral whole or independent entity rather
than by the process of piecing together their component parts. Most of
the researchers who define collocation agree that it is a lexical unit
consisting of a cluster of two or three words from different parts of

speech (e.g. Baker, 1992; Benson and Ilson, 1997). Most of the
definitions are paraphrases of Firth (1957: 183) definition that
collocations are “words in habitual company”.
Most of the definitions have at their core some sense of the ‘cooccurrence’ of words. For instance, Colin Mclntosh et al (2009) gives a
general definition of collocation that collocation is the way words
combine in a language to produce natural-sounding speech and writing.
In short, collocations are not easily defined. From a teacher’s point of
view, it is necessary to have a more transparent and practical definition
for the students.
Although there are different ways to define what collocation is,
these definitions share a common view that a collocation is a word or

24


phrase used frequently in a combination but it is not easy for learners to
guess.
2.2.5.2. Types of collocations
There is general agreement in the literature on the division of
collocates into lexical or grammatical categories.
Lexical collocations
Lexical collocation is defined by Lewis & Hill (1998) as having
five

main

categories:

adjective/noun,

verb/noun,

noun/verb,

adverb/adjective and verb/adverb. Gitsaki (1996:23) is able to define 37
categories of collocation, eight of which could be considered lexical
collocation and 29 grammatical (she thus largely accepts the structural
view of collocation). A lexical collocation is a type of construction
where a verb, noun, adjective or adverb forms a predictable connection
with another word, as in:
Adverb + Adjective: e.g. completely satisfied (NOT downright
satisfied)
Adjective + Noun: e.g. excruciating pain (NOT excruciating joy)
Noun + Verb: e.g. lions roar (NOT lions shout)
Verb + Noun: e.g. commit suicide (NOT undertake suicide)
In contrast to grammatical collocations, lexical collocations do not
contain grammatical elements. They can be classified into three types.
Open collocations: are characterized by a combination of two
words or more occurring together with no specific relation between
them. This means that the word can cluster with a large range of other
words. For example, the verb “catch” collocates with bus, train, cold,
and fire.
Restricted collocations: are considered to be the most commonly
used one. That is, the word can collocate with limited and fixed words.
Restricted collocations are defined by Aisenstadt (1979, p.71) as
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