Collocation 

and colligation are two closely related concepts associated with the distributional

properties of linguistic items in actual language use. Specifically, collocation and colligation
refer to the likelihood of co-occurrence of (two or more) lexical items and grammatical
categories, respectively. Both terms have been attributed to J. R. Firth (1957: 194–195;
1968: 181–183; see Östman and Simon-Vandenbergen 2005 and Shore 2010 for a summary of
Firth’s work). Since the terms were introduced, collocation in particular has become a
fundamental concept in usage-based studies in many linguistic fields, most notably lexical syntax
and semantics. Typically, collocations and colligations are studied in large electronic corpora
which allows for statistical analyses of the co-occurrence patterns of linguistic items.
1. collocation derives from the Latin collocare meaning place together.  It refers to items
in the language which are conventionally found together, placed that way, in other words.
2. colligation derives from the Latin colligare meaning tie together.  It refers to items
which form a set with syntactically identical properties.  Such items are said to colligate. 
A careful definition is: A term ... for the process or result of grouping a set of words on
the basis of their similarity in entering into syntagmatic grammatical relations.
(Crystal, 2008:86)
Collocation
Collocation refers to a group of two or more words that usually go together. A good way to think
of collocation is to look at the word collocation. Co - meaning together - location - meaning
place. Collocations are words that are located together. A good answer to "What is collocation?"
is: Collocation is a group of two or more words that like to hang out together. Here are some
examples of common collocations that you might know:
make tea - I made a cup of tea for lunch.
do homework - I did all of my homework yesterday.
Even though it possible to use other word combinations, understanding collocations help English
learners improve their fluency because they are words that usually go together.
Make and Do
I begin with 'make' and 'do' because they provide perfect examples of why collocation is so
important. Generally, 'make' refers to things that are made that weren't there before. 'Do' refers to
actions that we take or do such as chores. 
Collocations with 'Make'
make a cup of coffee / tea
make noise
make the bed
make a business deal
make a fuss
make sense
make time for someone
Collocations with Do
do the laundry
do the errands
do business with someone
do a chore
do the shopping
Make and Do are perfect examples of verbs that go together with specific nouns. A verb + noun
combination that always go together are considered collocations.
In corpus linguistics, a collocation is a series of words or terms that co-occur more often than
would be expected by chance. In phraseology, a collocation is a type of compositional phraseme,
meaning that it can be understood from the words that make it up. This contrasts with an idiom,
where the meaning of the whole cannot be inferred from its parts, and may be completely
unrelated.
An example of a phraseological collocation is the expression strong tea.[1] While the same
meaning could be conveyed by the roughly equivalent powerful tea, this expression is considered
excessive and awkward by English speakers. Conversely, a corresponding expression in
technology, powerful computer, is preferred over strong computer.
There are about six main types of collocations: adjective + noun, noun + noun (such as collective
nouns), verb + noun, adverb + adjective, verbs + prepositional phrase (phrasal verbs), and
verb + adverb.
Collocation extraction is a computational technique that finds collocations in a document or
corpus, using various computational linguistics elements resembling data mining.
Collocations are partly or fully fixed expressions that become established through repeated
context-dependent use. Such terms as crystal clear, middle management, nuclear family,
and cosmetic surgery are examples of collocated pairs of words.
Why Do Words Collocate?
There is often no reason for a collocation. People just put certain words together more often than
they put other words together. In fact, the use of collocations has become popular in English and
language teaching because of corpus linguistics. Corpus linguistics study huge volumes of data
of spoken and written English to come up with statistics on how often people use certain words
and word combinations. Through this study, corpus linguistics has been able to define what are
strong and weak collocations.
Collocations are used especially often in business English and there are dictionaries such as the
Oxford Dictionary of Collocations that can help you learn these common collocations. 
Strong Collocations
Strong collocations refer to words that almost always go together. It's possible that people might
understand you if you don't use a strong collocation. However, if you do not use a strong
collocation it will sound funny to native speakers. Let's return to our example of 'make' and 'do'.
If you say:
I did a cup of coffee.
native speakers will understand that you mean:
I made a cup of coffee.
Correct use of strong collocations shows an excellent command of the English language, and can
certainly help impress native speakers' of your ability to speak English well. Of course, if you are
speaking to other non-native speakers the ability to use collocations correctly all the time
becomes less important. That doesn't mean that correct collocation use is not important, it's just
not AS important as something like correct tense. Imagine for a moment that you are speaking
about a future meeting:
Our meeting was on Friday at four o'clock.
I've done an appointment at four o'clock for the meeting room on Friday.
In both of these sentences, there are mistakes. However, in the first sentence instead of using a
future tense, the past tense is used. If you want your colleagues to come to the meeting, this
mistake is very serious and will lead to no one coming to the meeting.
In the second sentence 'do an appointment' is a misuse of a strong collocation. However, the
meaning is clear: You have scheduled a room at four o'clock. In this case, a mistake in
collocations is not nearly as important as a mistake in tense usage.
Here are examples of strong collocations that you might not be familiar with:
high earnings (not big earnings)
long-range planning (not long-time planning)
urban guerrilla (not city guerrilla)
Why are Collocations Important?
There is an entire world of collocations to explore. Learning collocations is important because
you begin to learn words in larger groups or 'chunks' of language. Putting together these chunks
of language leads to more fluent English. For example, draw up a contract, set a price, conduct
negotiations, etc.
Collocation Examples
Here are a number of common collocations in English:
to make the bed I need to make the bed every day.
to do homework My son does his homework after dinner.
to take a risk Some people don't take enough risks in life.
to give someone adviceThe teacher gave us some advice on taking
tests.
Verb Collocations
Some of the most common collocations involve verb + noun collocations used
in everyday situations. Here are some examples of the types of verb collocations you will need as
you continue learning English.
to feel free Please feel free to take a seat and enjoy the show.
to come prepared Make sure to come prepared for the test tomorrow.
to save time You'll save time if you turn off your smart phone and concentrate on the
lesson.
to find a We need to find a replacement for Jim as soon as possible.
replacement
to make progress We're making progress on the project at work.
to do the washing I'll do the washing up and you can put Johnny to bed.
up
Business Collocations
Collocations are often used in business and work settings. There are a number of forms including
adjectives, nouns and other verbs that combine with keywords to form business
expressions. Here are some business collocations for specific situations.
to open an account Would you like to open an account at our bank?
to forgive a debt Do you think the bank would forgive a debt?
to land a deal We landed a deal worth $3 million.
to key in a PIN Just key in your PIN at the ATM and you can make a deposit.
to deposit a check I'd like to deposit this check for $100.
hard-earned money Once you get a job, you'll know what hard-earned money really
is.
to close a deal I closed a deal on a new account last week.
to write up a contractLet's write up your contract.
counterfeit money Be on the lookout for counterfeit money in circulation.
Common Expressions
Collocations are often used as short expressions to describe how someone feels about a situation.
In this case, collocations can be used in the adjective form, or also as emphatic expressions using
an intensifier and a verb. Here are a few examples using some common collocations:
positively encourage someone to do We'd like to positively encourage you to buy this stock.
something
deeply regret the loss of someone / I deeply regret the loss of your loved one.
something
to be in an utter fury over something Tom's in an utter fury over the misunderstanding with
his wife.
to go to great lengths to do something He went to a great length to explain the situation.
Get a Collocation Dictionary 
You can learn collocations from a number of resources. Academics and teachers like to use
collocation databases to help study common collocation uses. However, for students one of the
best tools is a collocation dictionary. A collocation dictionary is different from normal
dictionaries in that it provides you with collocations commonly used with key words rather than
a definition. Here is an example of a few of the collocations used with the verb 'progress':
Progress
 Adverbs: nicely, satisfactory, smoothly, well - You are progressing smoothly in this
course.| further - As you further progress, you will learn more. 
 Verb + Progress: fail to - He's failing to progress at work.
 Prepositions: beyond - She failed to progress beyond high school.  | from, through
- Students should progress from this class with an improved knowledge of the subject. 
Colligation is a type of collocation where a lexical item is tied to a grammatical one. It’s not the
end of the world is a common locution, however, its synonym it’s not Armageddon is not. The
phrase the end of the world colligates with the negative, whereas Armageddon doesn’t.
Collocation and colligation are therefore useful ways of looking at synonyms: words may mean
the same thing, but turn out to keep different company.
This is a term often contrasted with collocation.
Because the term colligation refers both to the process or result of grouping a set of words  we
can refer to items colligating and to the resulting group sharing the same colligation.  A
colligation, therefore, refers to sets of items which are primed to co-occur with certain
grammatical structures.  We can say that, for example:
     The verbs speak and tell colligate differently
or we can prefer:
     The verbs speak and tell belong to different colligations.
In English grammar, a colligation is a grouping of words based on the way they function in
a syntactic structure--i.e., a syntactic pattern. Verb: colligate.
As linguist Ute Römer has observed, "What collocation is on a lexical level of analysis,
colligation is on a syntactic level. The term does not refer to the repeated combination of
concrete word forms but to the way in which word classes co-occur or keep habitual company in
an utterance".
The word colligation comes from the Latin for "tie together." The term was first used in
its linguistic sense by British linguist John Rupert Firth (1890-1960), who defined  colligation as
"the interrelation of grammatical categories in syntactical structure."
Examples and Observations
"According to [John Rupert] Firth (1968:181), colligation refers to the relations between words
at the grammatical level, i.e. the relations of 'word and sentence classes or of similar categories'
instead of 'between words as such.' But nowadays the term colligation has been used to refer not
only to significant co-occurrence of a word with grammatical classes or categories but also to
significant co-occurrence of a word with grammatical words. The patterning with grammatical
words, of course, can be observed and computed even using a raw corpus."

 Kinds of Colligation
"Although based on Firth's concept, the more widespread Sinclairian use
of colligation describes the co-occurrence of a class of grammatical items with a
specified node. For instance, regarding the node true feelings, [John McH.] Sinclair notes
that 'there is a strong colligation with a possessive adjective...' Other kinds of colligation
might be a preference for a particular verb tense, negative particles, modal
verbs, participles, that- clauses, and so on. The basic idea of colligation is that just as a
lexical item may be primed to co-occur with another lexical item, so also it may be
primed to occur in or with a particular grammatical function.
 Colligation and Verbs of Perception
"The class of verbs of perception such as hear, notice, see, watch enters
into colligation with the sequence of object + either the bare infinitive or the -ing form;
e.g. We heard the visitors leave/leaving.
We noticed him walk away/walking away.
We heard Pavarotti sing/singing.
 We saw it fall/falling. The term [colligation] is far less general than the contrasting
term collocation."

 Collocation and Colligation in Language Instruction

"[C]ontext is not only central to linguistic analysis and description but in language
pedagogy too. I strongly believe that it makes sense to pay attention to collocation and
colligation in language instruction and to teach lexical items in their typical syntactic and
semantic contexts. This belief clearly echoes one of [John] Sinclair's (1997:34) . . . data-
centered precepts: '[i]nspect contexts,' in which he 'advocate[s] a much closer inspection
of the verbal environment of a word or phrase than is usual in language teaching.'
"A corpus-driven study of progressives, especially when it is in part pedagogically
motivated, thus has to closely examine the contexts of the respective items under analysis
and investigate which terms are normally selected together by the competent speaker of
English."