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جامــعة بنـــغازي المرج –مجلة العلوم والدراسات اإلنسانية

مجلة علمية الكترونية محكمة

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م0202/ ديسمبر 02 -والعشرون رابع الالعدد

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3112المجلد األول لسنة –العدد األول

ILLUSTRATIVE DESCRIPTION OF COLLOCATION IN

ENGLISH AND ARABIC

By

ALSEDIEG E. A. ELEMALI

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الملخص:

تواردات او المرصوفاتالم (Collocation) لورقة محاولة لدراسة مصطلحفى هذه اعند اهل اللغوٌات و القوامٌس و المهتمٌن تُستخدم و التً فً اللغة العربٌة و االنجلٌزٌة

تحدث لإلشارة الى كلمة ٌقترن استخدامها فً اللغة بكلمة او مجموعة كلمات اخرىبالترجمة لٌزٌة جباللغتٌن االن للمتواردات مامفصال الى حد معا بشكل متكرر. وهو ٌتضمن تحلٌال

إلخراجوالعربٌة. والغرض من هذه الورقة هو التركٌز على هذا المجال الهام فى محاولة الا حن مثفن. و تعلم اللغات بالمعاجموعالقته (Collocationات )متوارداهمٌة ال طبٌعة و

التى قد تبدو قوي و "powerful" و يقو "strong" ٌنصفتال فً لمتوارداترن انماط اقانُ , مثل هما فً موضع ما ستخدم كال منننى. وعلى الرغم من اننا ٌمكن ان شابهة المعاتم"strong argumentsقوي " جدال ،"powerful arguments" وفى ي قو جدال ,

strong"شاى قويعن أن ال. على سبٌل المثال نتحدث للمتواردات تأثٌراخرى هناك مواضعtea" من بدالا "powerful tea" مع فاسدر والشع تتوارد مع بالمثل اشقر . والشاى قوي

: نقول وتتصرف على هذا النح من المتواردات ٌمكننا ان نالحظ اسماء مجموعاتالبٌض. ون ٌكون هذا العمل الفكرى لجسر أ ٌؤمل ،اخٌراا ولكن مجموعة من الكالب. و، قطٌع من الماشٌة

ستولد المزٌد من البحوث فى مجاالت هامة اخرى ،الهوة فى التفسٌر والتعلٌم والتعلم من جهة .من جهة اخرى، االنجلٌزٌة باللغتٌن العربٌة و

Abstract.

In this paper, an attempt is made to study the term collocation as a group of words

occur together repeatedly. It incorporates a fairly detailed analysis of collocation in

both English and Arabic. The purpose of this paper is to focus on this important area

in an attempt to bring out the nature and significance of collocation and its relation to

lexicography. We, for example, can compare the collocation patterns of two

adjectives strong and powerful, which might seem to have similar meanings. Though

we can use both for some item, e.g. strong arguments and powerful arguments,

elsewhere there are collocation effects. For example we talk of strong tea rather than

powerful tea; but a powerful car rather than a strong car. Similarly blond collocates

with hair and adlle with eggs. We can note names of groups act like this: we say a

herd of cattle, but a pack of dogs. Finally, it is hoped that this piece of work will

bridge a gap in interpretation, teaching and learning on the one hand, and will

motivate further research into other important areas in English and Arabic, on the

other.





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Introduction.

This paper will describe and illustrate a class of word groups that lies between idioms

in which the semantics of the whole cannot be deduced from the meaning of the

individual constituents, and free word combinations in which if one of the words is

omitted, a reader cannot easily infer the meaning from the remaining ones.

Collocation is a lexical phenomenon with considerable importance for linguistics and

lexicography.

I will divide this paper into five main sections. In these sections, I aim at

describing and illustrating the phenomenon of collocation with examples from both

English and Arabic. In the first section, I will try to define the collocation

phenomenon and its types. In the second section, I will define grammatical

collocation; a range of different syntactic patterns will be involved. The third section

will be concerned with lexical collocation; a brief definition of the notion and its types

will be illustrated. The fourth section is devoted to collocation phenomenon in

Arabic; certain co-occurrence of lexical items will be displayed. In the fifth section, I

will look in varying degrees of combination which refer to the term collocational

range. Finally, I will give a conclusion based on the arguments contained in this

paper.

Collocations.

A group of words occurs together more often than by chance. This phenomenon is

called collocation. “Collocation comes from two Latin words, the word cum („with‟)

and the word locus („place‟)” (Singleton 2000, p.47). Thus, words are often „placed

together‟ with each other. Firth (cited in Bäcklund 1973, p.3) defines the concept of

collocation thus: collocations of a given word are statements of the habitual or

customary places of that word in collocational order but not in any other contextual

order and emphatically not in any grammatical order. The collocation of a word or a

„piece‟ is not to be regarded as mere juxtaposition. It is an order of mutual

expectancy. On the other hand, Benson (1985, p.61) defines collocation as a group of

words that occurs repeatedly, i.e. recurs in a language. “These patterns of co-

occurrence can be grammatical in that they result primarily from syntactic

dependencies or they can be lexical in that, although syntactic relationships are

involved, the patterns result from the fact that in a given linguistic environment

certain lexical items will co-occur” (Carter 1998, p.51). Unlike idioms, in which the

semantics of the whole cannot be deduced from the meanings of the individual

constituents, individual words in a collocation can contribute to the overall semantics

of the construct.

Grammatical Collocations.

Grammatical collocations often contain prepositions, including paired syntactic

categories. Benson (1985) states, a grammatical collocation is a recurrent

combination, usually consisting of a dominant word (verb, noun, adjective) followed





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by a “grammatical” word, typically a preposition. Examples of verb + preposition

collocations are: come to, put on, aim at, approve of, alert (somebody) to, etc.

Examples from Arabic are: ædræbæ 'an elta'am (to go on a hanger strike), ædræbæ

'an el 'amal (to strike), inhæræfa ila (to turn to). Examples of noun + preposition

collocations are: witness to, access to, by accident, anger at (towards), etc. Examples

from Arabic are: shahid 'ala (witness to), 'ala әksat (by „or in‟ instalments) moshrif

'ala (supervisor, controller). Examples of adjective + preposition collocations are:

fond of, afraid of, amazed at, alert to, etc. Examples from Arabic are: 'alim bi (well-

informed about) motæhamis li (enthusiastic to) moghrәm bi (fond of). In addition to

the above, Benson et al (1986, cited in Wanner 1996) extend the notion of

grammatical collocation: categorized English collocations into two classes: lexical

collocations and grammatical collocations (with 7 and 8 types respectively); lexical

collocations are made up only of verbs, adjectives, nouns and adverbs in different

possible combinations while grammatical collocations contain words such as verbs,

adjectives or nouns combined with a preposition or a grammatical structure”. Benson

and his colleagues grouped grammatical collocations into eight classes. The patterns

of the first seven are summarized below. The eighth class consists of a number of

restricted verb patterns that do not have a wide distribution (see Wanner, 1996):

A table of collocations (alongside 37 patterns) categorized based on their study

follows:

Pattern Example(s)

V + NP set an alarm

V + Adv walk slowly; argue heatedly

V + N take place/part; make a decision

Adj + N strong/weak plan

N + V alarms go off; bombs explode

N1 + of + N2 a bunch of keys; a pride of lions

Adv + Adj quite safe; deeply absorbed

N + Prep ability in/at; kind of; changes in

N + to + Inf an attempt to do it; years to come

N + that-clause He took an oath that he would do his duty.

We

reach an agreement that …; fact that

Prep + N on advice; by chance

Adj + Prep tired of; bored with; angry with/at

Adj + to + Inf ready to go; easy to learn; likely to be

Adj + that-clause She was afraid that she would fail the exam;

he





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was delighted that …

V + Prep I believe in …

V + direct O + to + indirect O =V +

indirect O + direct O

She sent the book to him. = She sent him the

book.

V + direct O + to + indirect O (no

movement for dative)

They mentioned the book to her.

V + direct O + for + indirect O = V +

indirect O + direct O

She bought a shirt for her husband. =She

bought

her husband a shirt.

V + Prep + O They came by train;

V + O + Prep + O We invited them to the meeting.

V + to inf She continued to write.

V + bare inf Mary had better go.

V + V-ing They enjoy watching TV.

V + O + to inf We forced them to leave.

V + O + bare inf She heard them leave.

V + O + V-ing He felt his heart beating.

V + a possessive and V-ing I cannot imagine their stealing apples.

V + that clause(rather uncommen) The doctor suggests me that I take vitamins.

V + O + to be + C We consider her to be well-trained.

V + O + C She dyed her hair red.

V (+ O1) + O2 The teachers asked (the students) questions.

It

took/cost (us) ten minutes/cents.

V + O + Adverbial You carry yourself well [/like a soldier].

V (+O) + wh-clause/wh-phrase She asked (us) why we had come.

It + V + O + to Inf It surprised me to learn of her decision.

It + V + O + that-clause It surprised me that our offer was rejected.

V + C (Adj or N) He was a pilot.

V + C (Adj) The milk tastes good.

(based on the categorization provided by Benson et al (1986).





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The table illustrates different collocations across patterns. Examples are given for

each combination.

Lexical Collocations.

In the previous section, I introduced the notion of grammatical collocations. In

contrast to that, lexical collocations contain no subordinate element; “they usually

consist of two „equal‟ lexical components” (Benson 1985, p.62), for example, verb

and noun, adjective and noun combinations. At the same time, Benson (1985) argues

for more extensive representation of such collocations in dictionaries. The main types

of lexical collocations are:

a- verb “creation / activation” + noun

These collocations consist of a verb denoting creation and / or activation

and a noun. Here are some examples of collocations with verbs denoting

creation: draw up a list, reach a verdict, make an impression etc. Other verbs

express the concept of activation such as: apply a principle, execute a will, set an

alarm, fly a kite, etc.

Benson (1985) indicates that in some examples, the same noun collocates

with one verb (or verbs) to denote creation and with another verb (or verbs) to

denote activation:

draw up a will = creation → execute a will = activation

establish a principle = creation → apply a principle = activation

Furthermore, in many instances the meanings creation and activation are

united in one verb: admit a candidate, perform an operation, offer opposition, pose

a question, etc.

Creation and activation collocations for polysemous nouns are extremely

important. For example, the entry for the noun line should have the following

collocations: children standing in a line (row of people); start each paragraph on a

line (words on a page). The entry for operation should have: a theatre of

operations (= where military operations take place); a major operation (in

hospital). The entry for dock should have: commercial dock (place for loading /

unloading ships); appear in the dock (in a court of law).

However, a collocational relation holds between two lexemes L1 and L2.

If the choice of L1 for the expression of a given meaning is contingent on L2, to

which this meaning is applied. Thus between the following pairs of lexical units

collocational relations holds: [to] do: (a) favour, [to] make: (a) mistake, close:

shave, narrow: escape, at: (a) university, in (a) hospital.

In addition, "many collocations that do not mean „creation‟ or „activation‟

are included in this class “e.g. [to] take a walk, [to] give a talk, [to] do the

laundry”. According to Wanner (1996), the general criteria for this class seems to

be the grammatical position of the Noun / Pronoun / Prepositional Phrase

argument and the semantic constraint that the verb does not denote „eradication‟

and „nullification‟





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b-verb „eradication / nullification‟ + noun

These collocations consist of a verb denoting eradication and / or nullification and

a noun. Typical examples are the following: ease tension, override a vote, reject

an appeal, reverse a decision, break a code, annul a marriage, etc. Thus, this class

has the same syntactic pattern as the previous class (a), but a different semantic

pattern.

c- Noun + verb

As we saw above, two classes with noun-verb combinations are distinguished.

Here are some examples of lexeme pairs which represent this class as:

misfortune: [to] strike (as in Misfortune struck before they had even left

the harbour); responsibility: [to] lie (as in The responsibility lies with John). Also,

bells ring, bees sting / swarm, bombs explode, birds chirp / sing / fly, adjectives

modify, etc.

Such pairs, according to Wanner (1996) are not considered as belonging to class

(a) above due to their deviant syntactic patterns, although their meanings are

equivalent to those mentioned above in class (a) collocations.

d- Adjective + noun

Here are several examples of adjective + noun collocations, some of these

collocations are suggested by the Explanatory and Combinatory Dictionary (ECD)

by Apresyan, Mel‟čuk, and Žolkovsky: pure chance, grave concern, deep

animosity, a confirmed bachelor, clear message, extensive knowledge, blazing

flame, keen competition, etc.

In addition, Wanner (1996) points out that Benson and his colleagues

suggest a more subtle classification such as:

Adverb + Adjective (e.g. closely acquainted, hopelessly addicted)

Verb + Adverb (e.g. appreciate sincerely, apologize humbly)

Noun + prep phrase (e.g. flock of sheep, pack of dogs)

Collocation in Arabic.

In order to illustrate my argument, I have chosen as an example, a very common and

neutral word, i.e. the verb /axeða/. It, literally, means 'He took', then I will turn to

some examples with the verb /dæræbæ/ 'He hit'. Mu‟jam Lessan Al-Arab one of the

most widely used Arabic monolingual dictionaries gives the following definitions for

the verb /axeða/: a) take as prisoner, put in prison. b) hold on, catch. c) take

possession of. d) punish. e) accept. The verb is used as transitive and is followed by a

direct object NP such as “he took the money”. Furthermore, the verb collocates with

other words forming expressions.

Let‟s examine some of the repeated occurrences of /axeða/ 'He took' and see if

we can identify some collocation patterns that might correspond to units of meaning.





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One of the relatively frequent expressions using /axeða/ is: axeða bi a'ain al

i'tibaar, literally “took with the eye of consideration”, "took into consideration". The

core unit in the expression is /axeða/ (took), which is always past. Of course the verb

/axeða/ may be inflected for third person singular, gender 'masculine' and aspect. The

other lexical item that almost always collocates with /axeða/ is the word i'tibaar

(consideration), when this word is replaced by a near synonym /hisbaan/ in which the

word bi 'ain is dropped and the expression is now just axeða fi al-hisbaan (i'tibaar can

be rarely replaced with /hisbaan/, but these words are semantically identical). Note

that the preposition preceding /i'tibar/ or /hisbaan/ is either bi „with‟ or fi „in / into‟

where the latter is more prominent. This collocation corresponds to English „take into

consideration or into account‟.

There are dozens of other collocations with the verb /axeða/ exhibiting

different degrees of variability and constituting different extended units of meaning.

Here are some examples:

- axeða rɂ‟yahu literally „He took his opinion‟ „adopted someone‟s opinion‟

- axeða 'ilman literally „He took knowledge‟ „He took note of‟

- axeða 'ala nafsihi literally „took on himself‟ „He undertook…‟

Let us examine another verb: /dæræbæ/. Mu'jam Lessan Al-Arab gives the

following definitions for this complex verb: a) to beat, strike, hit b) to knock, punch

c) to slap, flap d) to tap, etc. Here are some of the repeated occurrences of

/dæræbæ/:

- dæræbæ fi al-ardh-i

beat in earth “to roam, to travel”

- dæræbæ al-baba

knock the-door “to knock on the door”

- /dæræbæ/ al-baidha

beat the-eggs “to beat or whisk the eggs”

- /dæræbæ/ al-jarasa

beat the-bell “to ring the bell

- /dæræbæ/ raqman kiasia-n

beat number standard “ to set a record”

- /dæræbæ/ moi'dan

beat an appointment “made an appointment”

- dæræbæ mathal-n (th = / θ / )

beat example / proverb “to give an example / to say a proverb / to set an example

(for others)





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There are other collocations with the verb /dæræbæ/ exhibiting different

degrees of variability and consisting of different extended units of meaning.

Collocational range.

In general, most people would agree that one knows a word from the “company that it

keeps”. Singleton (2000, p.48) states that some words enter into a great number and

variety of lexical partnerships, whereas others are more „choosy‟ about the

combinations they become involved in. Carter (1998) asserts that some words have

different ranges from others. For instance, items associated with inferior qualities of

food have restrictive ranges. Putrid, rotten, rancid and addled are all virtually

synonymous: putrid fish, (in Arabic = samaku-n a'finun, lahamun „meat‟ a'finun,

ta'amun „food‟ a'finun); rancid oil (in Arabic = zaiunt fasid), rancid butter (in Arabic

= zobdat-un fasidat-un). Oil in Arabic is, grammatically, masculine whereas butter is

feminine, so the Arabic adjective fasidat-un is inflected according to the gender: fasid

– fasidat-un. Addled is confined only to eggs, while we say rotten fruit (in Arabic =

fakiha-t-u-n fasida), rotten fish (samaku-n fasidu-n).

On the other hand, some words have a much wider range, such as the English

word house. Here is a list of items with which this word frequently co-occurs: house-

boat, house-boy, house-break, house-clean, house-coat, house-fly, house-guest, house-

hold, house-mother, house party, house plant, house-wife, house-work, house agent,

house of commons, house of lords, house of representatives, house of correction, etc.

The Arabic examples below, also illustrate this point:

- bait alɂdab-i

house polite the toilet

- bait alɂumma

house nation parliament / people‟s council

- al – bait-u al – haram-u

house holy (taboo) he Kaaba

- bait al - maqdiss

House sanctuary Jerusalem

- bait-u al – mal-i

house money „wealth‟ treasury

- bait-u-n men a - shiɂr-i





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house from the verse line of poetry / verse

Thus the term used to refer to these different patterns of combinability is

collocational range; therefore house would be said to have a very wide collocational

range, whereas addled would be said to have a very restricted collocational range.

Carter (1998) indicates the importance of the fact that collocational ranges are

not fixed to the same degree as grammatical patterns; gives the example what

McIntosh terms „range-extending‟ tendencies‟ in which new collocates can be formed

because one word lends itself to such formation. For instance, the lexical item key

which considerably extended its range: key move, component, policy, book, etc, or

„fun‟ which follows the pattern of key in fun size, fun book, fun relationship, etc.

Conclusion.

In this paper I have looked at words which are frequently to be found in the company

of certain other words. This phenomenon is called collocation. These patterns of co-

occurrences can be grammatical or lexical. As we saw grammatical collocations often

contain prepositions, including paired syntactic categories, whereas lexical

collocations usually consist of two „equal‟ lexical components. Types and examples

in these categories have already been presented and some Arabic examples of

collocations have been discussed.

Finally, we have seen that a particular word may have a wider or more

restricted collocational range; i.e. enters into partnership with a greater or lesser

quantity and variety of other words.





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