What is Collocation?
We say that words that occur together frequently “collocate”. Words that don’t collocate almost never occur together. If we try, they sound unnatural and wrong:
- Time speeds / travels / rides / moves (they do not collocate)
- Time flies / goes by / wears on / passes (they collocate)
There are no rules or logical explanations for why some words collocate and others do not. For example, we can talk about an academic year but not a studying year. Discussions can be productive or fruitful but not prolific.
Grammatical Forms
- adverb + adjective: I’m hopelessly addicted to coffee.
- adjective + noun: I remember my formative years.
- noun + noun: The government have just unveiled their policy review.
- verb + noun: We will honour our pledge to reduce unemployment.
- dependent preposition: Personally, I think they should be ashamed of themselves.
- part of a longer phrase: It’s always interesting to delve into the past.
Fixed and Open Collocations
Some collocations are fixed phrases which cannot usually be changed.
- I’ll be back in a flash.
- My boss usually arrives at eight o’clock on the dot.
- The children arrived safe and sound.
Some words have a very limited number of collocates. We call these “strong collocations”. They are often highly idiomatic:
- She’s stark raving mad.
- The outbreak of violence served as a stark reminder of how fragile the peace was.
- He came to the door stark naked.
- You’re bone idle.
- The soil is bone dry.
Other words have a larger number of possible collocates. We call these “weak” collocations. They are more common than “strong” collocations.
- accumulate / acquire / amass / come into / flaunt your / inherit / wealth
- abandon / be involved in / dabble in / enter / go into / engage in /politics
- prices / dropped / fell / plummeted / slumped / fluctuated / remained steady / rose / shot up / soared / spiralled / went through the roof
Some collocations can be changed by using different grammatical forms or adding other words:
- You’re / We’re in danger of pricing yourself / ourselves out of the (property) market.
- She’s been gaining (an awful lot of) weight recently.
- to purify water / a water purifying gadget / water purification
However, some collocations cannot make these changes without sounding very unnatural:
- a tidal wave / the wave was tidal
- They agreed unconditionally. / They unconditionally agreed.
Exercise
Using what you have learned, complete the activity.