1

Abstract

The concept of semantic field and Collocation are terms that could be found in any language. It is an
aspect of language that deals with the combination and word group because of its nature. Semantic
field and Collocation in English Language aims at exploring and investigating fields and collocations
in language. This paper wishes to answer the following questions: what is semantic field? Examples
of semantic field, Its theory and application will also be considered. The concept of collocations , the
nature of collocations, The characteristics of collocations, different writers view on the concept of
collocations And how collocations are distinguished from other combinations? This paper is divided
into two parts; each part is subdivided into three sections. Early sections present chunk of definitions
by different writers, and moves to discover nature and structure of semantic field and Collocations,
while deeper sections intend to investigate how different scholars discussed semantic field and
Collocation from their perspectives, and different approaches to semantic field and Collocations
and their uniqueness in language studying.

Keywords: Semantic field, Collocations, Theory, Syntagmatic, Paradigmatic relations.

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Introduction

The word semantics comes from Greece sema (noun) which means ‘symbol’ or ‘sign’. The verb
is Semaino which means ‘signify’. The symbol of the synonymy of sema is linguistic sign (France:
sine linguistique) (2). Saussure states that linguistic sign consists of (1) the signifier, component, in
sort of sounds and (2) the signified, the referent outside of language. Semantics is a term which is used
in linguistics, which studies the relation between linguistic sign and signified thing. In other words,
semantics is a branch of linguistics which studies about the meaning.

Halliday states that the term “semantics” does not simply refers to the meaning of words; it is the
entire system of meanings of a language, expressed by grammar as well as its vocabulary. Semantics
brings in symbol using and symbol system outside language, but the central place of language in
human symbol systems makes language its primary concern. In semantics, one is trying to make
explicit, the ways in which words, and sentences of various grammatical construction are used and
understood by native or fluent speakers of a language (XVII).

In linguistics, a semantic field is a set of words grouped by meaning referring to a specific subject. The
term is also used in other academic disciplines, such as anthropology, computational semiotics, and
technical exegesis. Brinton defines “semantic field” or “semantic domain” and relates the linguistic
concepts to hyponymy: “Related to the concept of hyponymy, but more loosely defined. It is the notion
of a semantic field or domain. A semantic field denotes a segment of reality symbolized by a set of
related words. The words in a semantic field share a common semantic property” (112).

A general and intuitive description is that words in a semantic field are not synonymous, but are all
used to talk about the same general phenomenon. The meaning of a word is dependent partly on its
relation to other words in the same conceptual area. The kinds of semantic fields vary from culture to
culture and anthropologists use them to study belief systems and reasoning across cultural groups.

Andersen states that the traditional usage of “semantic field” theory as “traditionally, semantic fields
have been used for comparing the lexical structure of different languages and different states of the
same language” (327). The origin of the field theory of semantics is the lexical field theory introduced
by Jost Trier in the 1930s, although according to John Lyons, it has historical roots in the ideas of
Wilhelm von Humbolt and Johann Gottfried Herder. In the 1960s Stephen Ullmann saw semantic
fields as crystallising and perpetuating the values of society. For John Lyons in the 1970s words
related in any sense belonged to the same semantic field, and the semantic field was simply a lexical
category, which he described as a lexical field. Lyons emphasised the distinction between semantic
fields and semantic networks.
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According to the semantic field theory, it has informed the discourse of Anthropology as Ingold states,
“Semiology is not, of course, the same as semantics. Semiology is based on the idea that signs have the
meaning in relation to each other, such that a whole society is made up of relationally held meanings
(26).

But semantic fields do not stand in relations of opposition to each other, nor do they derive their
distinctiveness in this way, nor indeed are they securely bounded at all. Rather, semantic fields are
constantly flowing into each other. We may define a field of religion, but it soon becomes that of
ethnic identity and then of politics and selfhood, and so on. In the very act of specifying semantic
fields, people engage in an act of closure whereby they become conscious of what they have excluded
and what they must therefore include” (127).

Actually, linguists agree that any given language has a finite number of semantic fields and subfields,
although they may disagree about the exact categories. There are an infinite number of ways in which
the words from various semantic fields can be combined, but only a limited number of categories of
objects that can be verbalized. Within a semantic field, there may be a wide variety of words with
overlapping meanings and various levels of formality. On the level of application, the words within a
given semantic field are often related to cultural attitudes about the objects that field describes. For
instance, different languages have different numbers and types of words for family relationships.

Definition of Semantic field

A semantic field is a set of words (or lexemes) related in meaning. Also known as a word field, lexical
field, field of meaning, and semantic system. Linguist Adrienne Lehrer has defined semantic
field more specifically as "a set of lexemes which cover a certain conceptual domain and which bear
certain specifiable relations to one another" (85).

"The words in a semantic field share a common semantic property. Most often, fields are defined by
subject matter, such as body parts, landforms, diseases, colours, foods, or kinship relations.
Examples of semantic fields. . . . The field of 'stages of life' is arranged sequentially, though there is
considerable overlap between terms (e.g., child, toddler) as well as some apparent gaps (e.g., there are
no simple terms for the different stages of adulthood). Note that a term such
as minor or juvenile belongs to a technical register, a term such as kid or tot to a colloquial register,
and a term such as sexagenarian or octogenarian to a more formal register. The semantic field of
'water' could be divided into a number of subfields; in addition, there would appear to be a great deal
of overlap between terms such as sound/fjord or cove/harbor/bay."
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Semantic Metaphors and Fields

"Cultural attitudes to particular areas of human activity can often be seen in the choices
of metaphor used when that activity is discussed. A useful linguistic concept to be aware of here is that
of semantic field, sometimes called just field, or field of meaning.

"The semantic field of war and battle is one that sports writers often draw on. Sport, particularly
football, in our culture is also associated with conflict and violence."

More and Less Marked Members of a Semantic Field: Colour Terms

"In a semantic field, not all lexical items necessarily have the same status. Consider the following sets,
which together form the semantic field of colour terms (of course, there are other terms in the same
field):

1. blue, red, yellow, green, black, purple (less marked)

2. indigo, saffron, royal blue, aquamarine, bisque (more marked)

The colours referred to by the words of set 1 are more 'usual' than those described in set 2. They are
said to be less marked members of the semantic field than those of set 2. The less marked members of
a semantic field are usually easier to learn and remember than more marked members. Children learn
the term blue before they learn the terms indigo, royal blue, or aquamarine. Often, a less marked word
consists of only one morpheme, in contrast to more marked words (contrast blue with royal
blue or aquamarine). The less marked member of a semantic field cannot be described by using the
name of another member of the same field, whereas more marked members can be thus described
(indigo is a kind of blue, but blue is not a kind of indigo). Less marked terms also tend to be used more
frequently than more marked terms; for example, blue occurs considerably more frequently in
conversation and writing than indigo or aquamarine. . . Less marked terms are also often broader in
meaning than more marked terms ... Finally, less marked words are not the result of the metaphorical
usage of the name of another object or concept, whereas more marked words often are; for
example, saffron is the colour of a spice that lent its name to the colour."

Let us consider the relevance of semantic field of “Respect”. Respect denotes both a positive feeling
of esteem for a person or other entity (such as a nation or a religion), and also specific actions and
conduct representative of that esteem. Respect can be a specific feeling of regard for the actual
qualities of the one respected (e.g., “I have great respect for her judgment”). It can also be conduct in
accord with a specific ethic of respect. Ruse conduct is usually considered to indicate a lack of respect,
disrespect, where as actions that honour somebody or something indicates respect. Specific ethics of
respect are of fundamental importance to various cultures. Respect according to the tradition and
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legitimate authority is identified by Jonathan Haidt as one of five fundamental moral values shared to a
greater or lesser degree by different societies and individuals. Respect should not be confused with
tolerance, since tolerance doesn't necessarily imply any positive feeling. The antonym and opposite of
respect is contempt. Respect is shown in many languages by following specific grammatical
conventions, especially in referring to individuals.

The semantic field theory

Lexical semantic is the Saussure’s structural semantics claims that a word meaning is determined by
the “horizontal” paradigmatic and the “vertical” syntagmatic relations between that word and others in
the whole language.

Semantic Fields are conceptual regions shared out amongst a number of words. Each field is viewed as
a partial region of the whole expanse of ideas that is covered by the vocabulary of a language. Such
areas are referred to by groups of semantically related words, i.e. the Semantic Fields. Internally to
each field, a word meaning is determined by the network of relations established with other words.

There exists a strong correspondence among Semantic Fields of different languages, while such a
strong correspondence cannot be established among the terms themselves. For example, the field of
COLORS is structured differently in different languages, and sometimes it is very difficult, if not
impossible, to translate name of colours, even whether the chromatic spectrum perceived by people in
different countries (i.e. the conceptual field) is the same. Some languages adopt many words to denote
the chromatic range to which the English term white refers, distinguishing among different degrees of
“whiteness” that have not a direct translation in English. Anyway, the chromatic range covered by the
COLORS fields of different languages is evidently the same. The meaning of each term is defined in
virtue of its oppositions with other terms of the same field. Different languages have different
distinctions, but the field of COLORS itself is constant among all the languages.

Another implication of the Semantic Fields Theory is that words belonging to different fields are
basically unrelated. In fact, a word meaning is established only by the network of relations among the
terms of its field. As far as paradigmatic relations are concerned, two words belonging to different
fields are then un-related. This observation is crucial from a methodological point of view. The
practical advantage of adopting the Semantic Field Theory in linguistics is that it allows a large scale
structural analysis of the whole lexicon of a language, otherwise infeasible. In fact, restricting the
attention to a particular field is a way to reduce the complexity of the overall task of finding relations
among words in the whole lexicon, which is evidently quadratic in the number of words.

From the introductory concept on semantic field, we then take a look at the various theories in
semantic fields.
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Trier’s paradigmatic semantic field

The semantic field theory was brought into maturity by German scholar J. Trier in the 1930s, whose
version is seen as a new phase in the history of semantics. Wu summarized Trier’s semantic field
theory as follows:

a. The vocabulary in a language system is semantically related and builds up a complete lexical
system. This system is unsteady and changing constantly. Example, Information Communication
Technology (ICT)

b. Since the vocabulary of a language is semantically related, we are not supposed to study the
semantic change of individual words in isolation, but to study vocabulary as an integrated system.

c. Since lexemes are interrelated in sense, we can only determine the connotation of a word by
analyzing and comparing its semantic relationship with other words. A word is meaningful only in its
own semantic field. The word “Bank”, can be bank of the River, financial bank. The meanwhile the
origin of the word is the bank of the river.

Trier’s semantic field is generally considered paradigmatic. It deals with paradigmatic relations
between words such as hyponymy, synonymy and antonymy (94-95).

Limitations

The main limitation of the Trier’s theory is that it does not provide any objective criterion to identify
and delimitate Semantic Fields in the language. The author himself admits “what symptoms, what
characteristic features entitle the linguist to assume that in some place or other of the whole vocabulary
there is a field? What are the linguistic considerations that guide the grasp with which he selects
certain elements as belonging to a field, in order then to examine them as a field?” (Trier, 449).

Porzig’s syntagmatic semantic field

In contrast with Trier’s theory, another German linguist Porzig developed a notion of semantic field
which is called syntactic field by some scholars. Porzig’s study was based on the analysis of the
internal relation of the co-occurrence between words. It studied the probability for a lexical item to co-
occur with others in the same context, e.g., bite and teeth, lick and tongue, bark and dog, etc. They are
bound together by what Porzig called essential meaning-relations. The general nature of these relations
is like this: What does one bite with? With the teeth, of course. What does one lick with? With the
tongue, obviously. What is it that barks? A dog. This is illustrated by a few examples which are so
banal that one may be inclined to overlook it and above all to underestimate its importance. However,
because the appearance of one word in a syntagmatically-related lexical system always predicts the
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occurrence of the other and because there is a kind of expectancy and prediction between them, this
syntagmatic relationship is essential to the acquisition of the depth of word knowledge.

The core point of syntagmatic semantic field is that the components in a phrase are not only
grammatically related, but also semantically related. For example, in the phrases “open the door” (to
make open or become open), “open an envelope” (to unfold or spread out), “open a shop” (to begin
business), “open a road” (to make it possible to use a passage by removing the things that are blocking
it), and “open a conference” (to start), open has different meanings in different contexts, and these
meanings are determined by its collocation. A word has one of its meanings only when it collocates
with a certain word or words, and in this way specific collocations are constituted, which constrains
the appearance and existence of a certain meaning of one word. The syntagmatic semantic field is
always used to analyze collocation, polysemy and metaphorical meanings.

Semantic Fields and the meaning-is-use view

In the previous section we have pointed out that the main limitation of the Trier’s theory is the gap of
an objective criterion to characterize Semantic Fields. The solutions we have found in the literature
(Weisgerber,1939; Porzig, 1934; Coseriu, 1964) rely on very obscure notions, of scarce interest from a
computational point of view. To overcome such a limitation, in this section we introduce the concept
of Semantic Domain. The notion of Semantic Domain improves that of Semantic Fields by connecting
the structuralist approach in semantics to the meaning-is-use assumption introduced by Ludwig
Wittgenstein in his celebrated “Philosophical Investigations” (65). A word meaning is its use into the
concrete “form of life” where it is adopted, i.e. the linguistic game, in the Wittgenstein’s terminology.
Words are then meaningful only if they are expressed into concrete and situated linguistic games that
provide the conditions for determining the meaning of natural language expressions. To illustrate this
concept, Wittgenstein provided a clarifying example describing a very basic linguistic game: “. . . Let
us imagine a language . . . The language is meant to serve for communication between a builder A and
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an assistant B. A is building with building-stones; there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to
pass the stones, and that in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they use a language
consisting of the words block, pillar, slab, beam. A calls them out; – B brings the stone which he has
learnt to bring at such-and-such a call. – Conceive of this as a complete primitive language.” (65) We
observe that the notions of linguistic game and Semantic Field show many interesting connections.

They approach the same problem from two different points of view, getting to a similar conclusion.
According to Trier’s view, words are meaningful when they belong to a specific Semantic Field, and
their meaning is determined by the structure of the lexicon in the field. According to Wittgenstein’s
view, words are meaningful when there exists a linguistic game in which they can be formulated, and
their meaning is exactly their use. In both cases, meaning arises from the wider contexts in which
words are located.

Words appearing frequently into the same linguistic game are likely to be located into the same field.
In the previous example the words block, pillar, slab and beam have been used in a common linguistic
game, while they clearly belong to the Semantic Field of BUILDING INDUSTRY. This example
suggests that the notion of linguistic game provides a criterion to identify and to delimitate Semantic
Fields. In particular, the recognition of the linguistic game in which words are typically formulated can
be used as a criterion to identify classes of words composing lexical fields. The main problem of this
assumption is that it is not clear how to distinguish linguistic games between each other. In fact,
linguistic games are related by a complex network of similarities, but it is not possible to identify a set
of discriminating features that allows us to univocally recognize them. “I can think of no better
expression to characterize these similarities than ‘family resemblances’; for the various resemblances
between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. overlap and criss-
cross in the same way. - And I shall say: ‘games’ form a family” (67).

Semantic fields/Relations
Semantic relations or meaning relations are words that are semantically related to other words. Modern
studies of semantics are interested in meaning primarily in terms of word and sentence
relationships. Semantic relations are considered in terms of the following relations:

Synonymy (Paradigmatic relation): Akwanya (1996) in Umera-Okeke defined synonyms as

“different phonological words having similar meanings” (47). Palmer also in Umera-Okeke opined
that “synonymy is used to mean sameness of meaning.” (49) In defining synonym, summarily stated
that synonym is one meaning, different forms. Synonyms usually differ in at least one semantic
feature. Sometimes the feature is objective (denotative), referring to some actual, real world
difference in the referents; example: walk, lumber, stroll, meander, lurch, stagger, stride, mince.
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Sometimes the feature is subjective (connotative), referring to how the speaker feels about the referent
rather than any real difference in the referent itself; example: die, pass away, give up the ghost, kick
the bucket, croak. Ndimele (56-58) stated that there are different types of synonyms, namely:
Absolute synonyms: those words which mean exactly the same thing and have the same
communicative effect in all the contexts in which they are used. They can be used in identical
environments all the time without a change in meaning. Examples:
Anybody/anyone everybody/everyone
Frequently/often rarely/seldom
Nobody/ no one somebody/someone
Hardly/scarcely noon/midday
Bandit/brigand embezzle/defalcate
Near or broad synonyms: those words which have the same reference but differ in their associative
meanings. They have the same communicative effect in some contexts but not in all contexts.
Example: slender/thin/skinny, deep/profound, ripe/mature, little/small, hide/conceal, etc.
However another source identified a third type of synonym known as partial synonym. One special
type of partial synonym is called a paronym. Paronyms are words with associated meanings which
also have great similarities in form; example: proscribe/prescribe,
industrial/industrious, except/accept, affect/effect. Many errors in speech and writing are due to
mix-ups involving paronyms.
Other examples of synonyms are found in the list below using commonly used descriptive adjectives
to illustrate them:
 Beautiful: attractive, pretty, lovely, stunning
 Fair: Just, objective, impartial, unbiased
 Funny: humorous, comical, hilarious, hysterical
 Introverted: shy, bashful, quiet, withdrawn
 red, difficult
 Outgoing: friendly, sociable, warm, extroverted
 Pacify: appease, placate

 Recalcitrant: obstinate, stubborn

 Turbulent: disordered, violent

 Valid: authorized, legitimate

 Old: antiquated, ancient, obsolete, extinct, past, prehistoric, venerable, aged

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 True: genuine, reliable, factual, accurate, precise, correct, valid, real

 Important: required, substantial, vital, essential, primary, significant, requisite, critical

 Weak: frail, anemic, feeble, infirm, languid, sluggish, puny, fragile

Antonyms (Paradigmatic relation):

An antonym is a word that is the opposite meaning of another. It comes from the Greek words “anti”
for opposite and “onym” for name. Since language is complex, people may at times, disagree on what
words are truly opposite in meaning to other words.

There are three categories of antonyms:

(i) Graded antonyms deal with levels of the meaning of the words, like if something is not
“good”, it may still not be “bad.” There is a scale involved with some words, and besides
good and bad there can be average, fair, excellent, terrible, poor, or satisfactory.

Examples include:

 Fat and skinny

 Young and old
 Happy and sad
 Hard and soft
 Last and first
 Soft and hard
 Worried and calm
 Dull and interesting

(ii) Complementary antonyms have a relationship where there is no middle ground. There are
only two possibilities, either one or the other.

Examples include:

 Man and woman

 Push and pull
 Dead and alive
 Crooked and straight
 Identical and different
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 Sharp and dull

 Raise and lower
 Fantasy and reality

(iii) Relational antonyms are sometimes considered a subcategory of complementary

antonyms. With these pairs, for there to be a relationship, both must exist.

Examples are:

 Give and receive

 Teach and learn
 Instructor and pupil
 Seller and buyer
 Mother and daughter
 Trap and release
 Lost and found
 Left and right
 Give and get
 Employer employee

Polysemy (Syntagmatic relation):

This is a meaning relation whereby a single lexical item has several (apparaently) related meanings.
That is the several meanings of a polysemous word must belong to a common semantic field. The
word, bank, has at least two meanings: side of a river and financial institution. But unfortunately, it
does not qualify as a polysemous word because these two meanings are totally unrelated. Examples of
polysemous words in English:

Mouth: (i) as part of the body

(ii) as where rivers flow into the sea
(iii) as entrance of a cave
Ear: (i) part of the body
(ii) Part of a plant (such as maize)
Flight: (i) as passing through the air (birds flight)
(ii) As air journey
(iii) Power of flying
Head: (i) leader of a group
(ii) Part of body
(iii) Part of furniture
(iv) Part of a coin
Eye: (i) as part of the body
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(ii) as a hole in a needle through which thread passes

Foot: (i) as part of the body
(ii) as part of a mountain
(iii) as part of a bridge
(iv) as part of a bed (60-61).

Hyponymy (Paradigmatic relation)

Hyponymy is a sense relation in semantics that serves to relate word concepts in a hierarchical fashion.
Hyponymy is a relation between two words in which the meaning of one of the words includes the meaning of
the other word. The lexical relation corresponding to the inclusion of one class in another is hyponymy.
Examples are: apple- fruit ; car- vehicles ; chair- furniture ; cow – animal. Example

The more specific concept is known as the hyponym, and the more general concept is known as the hypernym
or superordinate. Apple is the hyponym and fruit is the superordinate / hypernymy. Hyponymy is not restricted
to objects, abstract concepts, or nouns. It can be identified in many other areas of the lexicon.
Examples:
a. the verb ‘cook’ has many hyponyms.
Word: Cook (hypernym)
Hyponyms: Roast, boil, fry, grill, bake.

b. the verb ‘colour’ has many hyponyms

Word: colour (hypernym)
Hyponyms: blue, red, yellow, green, white, black, purple and pink.
Hyponymy involves the logical relationship of entailment. Example: ‘There is a horse’ entails that ‘There is an
animal”. Hyponymy often functions in discourse as a means of lexical cohesion by establishing referential
equivalence to avoid repetition
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Example of the semantic field of motor vehicle

Motor vehicle

Automobile

Motor car bus truck van motor cycle

Jeep luxury bus lorry pickup van power bike
Taxi school bus trailer railway baggage car water bike
Sports car air bus tanker small truck etc
Estate car sea bus wagon caravan
Jalopy old unreliable car tipper camper
Hybrid car electric conductor wares cart
Rail car busbar of computer bargain wagon
Elevator commerce a preposition
Limousine army wing or division
Police car
Hearse
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Convertibles
Gulf cart
Amphibious vehicles
Looking at the diagram above, the semantic field of motor vehicle has a wide spectrum of meanings.
Some of the lexical items in a field are compatible synonyms or co-hyponyms. For example, in the
semantic field of ‘car,’ jeep, taxi, sports car, limousine, convertibles are co-hyponyms and are
synonymous. On the contrary, in the semantic field of ‘truck’, lorry, trailer, tanker, tipper, are
compatible or co-hyponymous but commerce, bargain, wares are incompatible with other lexical items
in the semantic field. The same phenomenon occurs in the semantic field of van and bus.

The concept of Collocation

Collocation is the tendency that enables words to occur near each other in natural language for
example blond and hair. First use of word collocation was by Francis Bacon in his Natural History
from 1627, but not as a linguistic concept. Perhaps, first use as a linguistic term was in 1930s, when
Palmer used it to refer to units of words that are combinatory (4). This denotation is typical and close
to nowadays uses, such as a natural combination of words (McCarthy & O‘Dell, cited in (Gyllstad, (6).

The study of linguistic context is of great interest to semantics for two reasons. First, by looking at the
linguistic context of words to distinguish meaning. Palmer quoting Nida gave the following examples,
Sat in a chair
The baby’s high chair
The chair of philosophy
Has accepted a University chair
The chairman of the meeting
Will chair the meaning
The electric chair
Condemned to the chair
These words are in pairs giving different meaning of the word chair. This example is commonly
found in dictionaries.

Secondly, the general distribution of words may also be affected by their meaning. For instance,
rancid occurs with bacon and butter, and addled with brains and eggs, in spite of the fact that
English has the terms rotten and bad and that milk is never rancid but only sour. As we all know,
pretty child and Buxom neighbour refers to females. We can also have the word abnormal or
exceptional weather. While we have exceptional child and not abnormal child.
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Many scholars have examined the definition of collocation. Starting with J. R. Firth is highly
respected for his contributions and developing of collocations, he is wildly considered father of
collocation, He introduced "collocation" for characteristics and frequently recurrent word
combinations, arguing that the meaning and usage of a word can be determined by neighbouring words
"you shall know a word by the company it keeps” Firth (179). For Firth collocation is habitual co-
occurrence of words like: rotten food, rancid butter. Brand ford and Palmer cited in Alhalaby agree
with Firth in his definition of collocation and on the habitual co-occurrence of certain words, like pass
and make, they occur more often with judgment and decision, passing judgment and making decision.
We can’t change the verbs of these collocations due to collocational restrictions (7).

Collocation is capacity of lexical items to collocate, and establish syntagmatic connection with other
words. For example, flock, herd, school, and pride are synonyms which designate group of Animals
but they collocate only with a limited number of words: flock of sheep, herd of cows, school of
whales, pride of lions (5).

Both Palmer and Bolinger hold that ‘collocation’ means keeping company. Besides, Bolinger asserts
that collocation, unlike idiom, is semantically transparent; knowing the parts of a collocation, one can
deduce its meaning. This is completely in contrast to what Palmer says: “Collocation … cannot easily
be predicted in terms of the meaning of the associated words” (76). He illustrates his view by the word
blond, which can be used with hair but which is not appropriate for the description of door or dress.

Kjellmer defines the term ‘collocation’ as “a sequence of words that occurs more than once in identical
form … and which is grammatically well-structured” (128), and distinguishes several types of such
combinations of words (ibid. 112-5):

The first type is called ‘fossilized phrases’ by reason that the occurrence of one word in such phrases
suggests the occurrence of another. Kjellmer subdivides them into three categories:

1. ‘right-and-left predictive’ phrases

2. ‘right-predictive’ phrases
3. ‘left-predictive’ phrases

‘semi-fossilized’, one word predicts a very limited number of words – e.g. Achilles heel/Achilles
tendon, by and by/by and large, inferiority complex/Oedipus complex/persecution complex. Semi-
fossilized phrases are either right- or left-predictive. The variants of semi-fossilized phrase must form
a lexically (rather than functionally) specifiable and highly restricted set of words. Thus, for example,
the combinations blue book, blue car, blue shirt are not regarded as collocations.
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The third group of collocations is composed of ‘variable phrases’. The key concept for their formation
is tendency – “one word tends to co-occur with one or a few out of a great number of words that can
co-occur with it” (ibid. 113). Kjellmer further subdivides variable phrases into two sets:

they consist of two or more lexical words and some of them also incorporate function words – e.g.
glass of water, classical music, close friend, feel comfortable

they are sequences of one lexical word and one or more function words – e.g. a number of, for a
change, it is obvious that, to apply to

Kjellmer concludes his discourse on collocations by claiming that “a decisive characteristic of

collocations is the predictable nature of their constituents: the presence of one of them will predict the
presence of the other(s)” (ibid. 125).

Sinclair agrees with Kjellmer on “that the choice of one word affects the choice of others in its
vicinity” (173) and calls this fact ‘the idiom principle’. Then he contrasts it with ‘the open-choice
principle’, which treats words as independent items of meaning, and emphasises its predominance:
“For normal texts, the first mode (of interpretation) to be applied is the idiom principle, since most of
the text will be interpretable by this principle. Whenever there is good reason, the interpretive process
switches to the open-choice principle, and quickly back again” (ibid. 114).

Benson precisely describes Collocation "in English as in other languages there are many fixed
identifiable, non-idiomatic phrases and constructions such group of words are called recurrent
combinations and fixed combination or collocation" (XI). For instance, good Job and well done are
Collocations because we can predict the meaning from individual parts of combination in addition to
that they are fixed and unmodifiable along with it is Non-Idiomatic.

Nature of English Collocation

Words alone rarely convey full meaning, there must be a sort of combination or attachment to convey
full meaning, In any language words can be combined in numerous ways to form meaningful groups if
those words are not restricted. Sometimes it is very difficult and challenging to examine them and to
draw distinguishing line between them for classifying them, that is what makes it hard to clarify the
notion of collocation. Among these possible combinations of words, some are fixed and others are
loose. Though these combinations are quite similar to one another, even, in a sense, belonging to the
category of collocations yet they are different. Collocation is characterized. (arranging or grouping)

Natural language expression is compositional, if the meaning of the expression can be predicted
from the meaning of the parts it is compositional, Collocation is not fully compositional in that there is
usually an element of meaning added to the combination. For example strong tea, strong added rich or
 17

dark nature to tea. Although it is closely related, but slightly different from the original sense having
great physical strength. (141). Another definition is offered by Michael Lewis “collocations describe
the way individual words co-occur with others" (93). As other linguists Lewis confirms that
collocation is habitual and has no fixed certain pattern to follow. Halliday and Hasan consider
collocation as lexical cohesion (285-286). If there is any combination of words that share “lexico-
semantic” characterization ultimately has cohesive function. Collocation chains may occur within the
same sentence and across sentence boundaries. Examples of collocation chains are "candle, flame,
flicker", "hair, comb, curl, wave", and "poetry, literature, reader, writer, style". These are also
called associations by Halliday and Hasan (ibid).Collocation is a lexical relation on syntagmatic plane
rather than pragmatic plane, syntagmatic relationship of lexical items “shows how words combine and
which sort of structural relationships link them”( 77). While Pragmatic plane “explains how certain
words in lexicon can be selected at particular points along the chain and why others would be
inappropriate” (Ibid). Collocation is matter of “chain” rather than “choice” (Ibid). This characteristic
makes collocation distinguishing.

Structure of Collocation

In order to distinguish collocation from other combinations which are definitely very difficult and
challenging to make a clear cut-line between them, maybe it is helpful to mention division
of collocation according to the size and type in which it occurs in the text or how many words in terms
of meaning can modify. Sinclair as quoted in Martynska introduces the two terminologies “Node” and
“span” (2). Collocation is combinations of two words that habitually and frequently co-occur, one of
the word is more prominent and dominating as compared with other word is attached to it in
order delimit its meaning. Node is main word in combination while the number of relevant lexical
items on each side of a node is defined as a 'span'. Later on Sinclair (Ibid) slightly changes the
previous idea and forms new approach. In this new approach both the lexical and the grammatical
aspects of collocation are taken into account. Thus, he (Ibid) divides collocations into two categories:

1. Upward collocation
2. Downward collocations.
First group consists of words that collocate more often with other words as compared to second group.
For example; Back collocates with at, down, from, into, on all of them are more frequent and often
occur in natural speaking words than back. For example: Back at, Back down, Back from, Back into
and Back on.

The 'downward' collocations on the other hand, are words which habitually collocate with words that
are less frequent than they are, e.g. arrive, bring are less frequent occurring collocates of back. For
 18

example arrive back, bring back. Sinclair draws a clear dividing line between two categories when he
points out that elements of “upward” are mostly adverbs, pronouns, adverbs and prepositions, tends to
form grammatical collocation while “downward” collocations, mostly nouns and verbs, lexical
collocation.

Hausmann cited in Seretan categorizes all lexical collocations into a ‘base’ and a ‘collocator’ as
follow (13):

Verb + noun
(collocator) (Base)
to carry ‘insurance’
(2) Noun + verb (Base) (collocator)
dogs bark
(3)Adjective + noun
(collocator) (Base)
compelling argument
(4) Verb + adverb
(Base) (collocator)
confess frankly
(5) Adverb + adjective
(collocator) (Base)
hopelessly addicted
According to Hausmann the item whose meaning is not changed after collocated is called base, and the
other item which is selected by the base, is called collocate. In a collocation, base chooses collocate
not vice versa, and meaning of base is dominating collocated words. (Ibid 25).

Carter cited in Martynska depending on restrictedness, classified collocation into four types (5):

1. Unrestricted: this type is open and often collocates with many items. For example: take a
walk /time/ a look /a rest/.

2. Semi- restricted: this type of collocation is characterized by limited adequate substitution or

replacement of elements of collocation, for example. harbour doubt/ grudges/uncertainty/suspicion.
The other two categories include

3. Familiar: this is more restricted than second type, like: unrequited love, lukewarm reception

4. Restricted: collocations which are fixed and inflexible, for example: dead drunk, pretty sure

Approaches to Collocation:
 19

Frequency based approach:

The frequency-based approach is linked and adopted by British scholars that follow Firthian theories.
Among the most important and known scholars are M. A. K. Halliday (1966), J. Sinclair (1991). As
the name suggests, one of the most important criteria for identifying collocations is the frequency of
co-occurrences of lexical items. According to this approach collocation is combination of two words
that happens more often to occur together in certain distance (15).J. R. Firth (1957) is widely
considered as the father of collocation and the developer of this approach. This approach is based on
the assumption that the meaning of a word is determined by the co-occurring words (2). Firth gave the
example of the word ' ass', claiming that there are only limited possibilities with preceding adjectives,
amongst which the commonest are you silly, obstinate, stupid. "(ibid) Halliday was early authors who
adopted Firth’s concept of collocation. He finds collocation as syntagmatic associations of lexical
items of all probabilities which occur in a certain distance from each other. He defines 'probability' as
"the frequency of the item in a stated environment relative to its total frequency of occurrence."
Halliday cited in Maurer-Stroh but he does not clearly define 'distance. 'Like Firth, he finds collocation
as a lexical phenomenon rather than a grammatical one (4).

Sinclair defines collocations as “the occurrence of two or more words within a short space of each
other in a text” (170). A short space’, or ‘span’ is defined by Nesselhauf “as a distance of around
four words to the right and left of the word under investigation”, which is called the “node” (26).

Semantic Approach:

The Firthians approach to the study of collocations was found insufficient and unsatisfactory by
semanticists because it categorizes collocation according to how often these words co-occur without
approaching why there are lexical items that collocate only with certain other lexical items. Firth's
theory of meaning of collocation was found insufficient for the study of collocations. Lyons complains
that Firth’s theory about collocation is insufficient and unconvincing since it does not come across
justifying apparent lack of explanations through which the reason behind often co-occurrence could be
clarified. Lyons cited in (Gitsaki,1996).Robins (1967), rejected the idea of one segment ultimately led
to one meaning, and he sheds light on an important aspect of the semantic structure of language: "word
meanings do not exist in isolation, and they may differ according to the collocation in which they are
used" (Robins 21).

The structural Approach

The structural approach (phraseological approach) is associated with some European researcher who
are interested in examining collocation indifferent languages. (examining collocation should include
grammar, because of nature of collocation that is determined by structure and its occurrences in
 20

patterns, which contrasts with the two aforementioned approaches, the frequency-based and semantic
approach, Lexis and grammar are linked, consequently, two categories are introduced: lexical and
grammatical collocation (ibid).The definition of collocation presented within this approach is based on
the delineation of collocations and separating it from other word combinations, mainly free
combinations, idioms and other combinations. Collocations are distinguished from free combinations
on the basis of whether the substitution of items in a words combination is either arbitrary or
semantically motivated (27). While Lexical Collocations do not contain prepositions, infinitives
or relative clauses but consist of Nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. There are seven types of them
(Ibid) like: argue heatedly, sound asleep. Benson and Ilson (20) classifies collocation as follows:

Noun + preposition blockade against

Noun +to-infinitive They felt a need to do it.
noun + that –clause He took an oath that he would do his duty.
preposition + noun by accident
adjective + preposition fond of children
adjective +to-infinitive it’s nice to be here
adjective +that –clause it was imperative that I be here
verb +to-infinitive(they began to speak ) or verb + bare infinitive (we must work ) and other.
Lexical collocations do not contain prepositions, infinitives or relative clauses but consist of nouns,
adjectives, verbs and adverbs. There are 7 types of them:
1. verb (which means creation/action) + noun/pronoun/prepositional phrase: come to an agreement,
launch a missile
2.verb (which means eradication/cancellation) + noun reject an appeal, crush resistance
3. [adjective + noun] or [noun used in an attributive way + noun]. strong tea, a crushing
4.noun + verb naming the activity which is performed by a designate of this noun bees sting
5.quantifier + noun a piece of advice
6. adverb + adjective: sound asleep
7. verb + adverb: argue heatedly
Aisenstadt More frequently, authors adopting a phraseological approach (81)
Divides collocations into seven types:
Adjective + noun Heavy smoker
(subject-) noun + verb (Storm – rage) Noun + noun ( Piece of advice)
Adverb + adjective (Deeply disappointed )
Verb + adverb (Severely criticize)
Verb + noun (Make a decision)
 21

Verb + preposition + noun (come to a decision).

Benson et al . make the same distinctions as Aisenstadt, but adds the combinations: Noun + preposition
Interest in Preposition +noun By accident Adjective + preposition Angry at (20)

Types of collocations

In an effort to characterize collocations, lexicographers and linguists present a wide variety of

individual collocations, attempting to categorize them as part of a general scheme. Researchers
identify similarities and differences in their behaviour, in the process coming a step closer to providing
a definition.

Distinctions are made between grammatical collocations and semantic collocations.

Grammatical collocations often contain prepositions, including paired syntactic categories such as
verb+preposition (e.g. come to, put on), adjective+ preposition (e.g. afraid that, fond of), and
noun+preposition (e.g. by accident, witness to). In these cases, the open-class word is called the base
and determines the words it can collocate with, the collocators. Often, computational linguists restrict
the type of collocations they acquire or use to a subset of these different types (e.g. [11]).

Semantic collocations are lexically restricted word pairs, where only a subset of the synonyms of the
collocator can be used in the same lexical context. Examples in this category have already been
presented.

Another distinction is made between compounds and flexible word pairs.

Compounds include word pairs that occur consecutively in language and typically are immutable in
function. Noun+noun pairs are one such example, which not only occur consecutively but also
function as a constituent. Cowie notes that compounds form a bridge between collocations and idioms,
since, like collocations, they are quite invariable, but they are not necessarily semantically opaque
(12). Since collocations are recursive (ibid.), collocational phrases, including more than just two
words, can occur. For example, a collocation such as by chance in turn collocates with verbs such as
find, discover, notice. Flexible word pairs include collocations between subject and verb, or verb and
object; any number of intervening words may occur between the words of the collocation.

Idioms and Collocation

All Languages have chunks of words that cannot be understood literally despite knowing meaning of
components, Idioms, Proverb and many other chunks offer this complexity. Words can be combined in
numerous ways to form meaningful thoughts. This variety of possible combinations of words, some
 22

are fixed and others are loose. In order to get a clearer understanding of collocation, it is necessary to
draw a distinction between collocations and idioms, and other types of word combinations.

“In linguistics an idiom is defined as a complex lexical item which is longer than a word form but
shorter than a sentence and which has a meaning that cannot be derived from the knowledge of its
component parts.

Gramley and Patzold sees Meaning as decisive, if not the only, criterion for idioms.” (55). Gramley
and Patzold did not refer to matter of fixedness of idiom, yet he offers clear characteristics of idiom of
being Longer than one word, yet Shorter than a sentence, non-transparent or “decisive” which resulted
from being unpredictable basing on the meaning of component words, while we can anticipate
meaning of collocation by knowing meaning of elements of collocation, along with matter of length,
usually collocations consists of two elements. Crystal cited in Jabir and Hadi defines idiom as a "term
used in Grammar and Lexicology to refer to a sequence of words which semantically and often
syntactically restricted, so that they function as a single unit” (23). Semantically, meaning of idioms
cannotbe predicted basing on the meaning of component elements of the idiom,Syntactically, Crystal p
oints to the fact that "the words often do not permit the usual variability they display in other context,
for example , it's raining cats and dogs does not permit it’s raining a cat and a dog/dogs and cat". There
are some transparent idioms that permit internal changes like: it’s worth her while/the job will
be worth me while (Ibid).Cruse from Agrebelsky, finds semantic transparency as apparent distinguishing
characteristics of collocations, but he does not deny that in some cases the meaning of one of
component may be restricted (27). Best example is adjective heavy in collocations such as heavy
drinker, and heavy smoker, adjective “heavy” expresses different meaning in these two collocations as
compared to actual and normal meaning of itself, like: A heavy bag. The adjective heavy in the
collocations heavy drinker, and heavy smoker acquires a specific meaning which is attached to it by
the second constituent. But still new meaning does not change its semantic transparent meaning, the
expressions remain semantically transparent.(Ibid)Therefore it can be concluded that meaning by
collocation is not idiomatic and that, at most, it is possible to identify specialized senses of constituents
restricted to a particular collocation. Bolinger quoted from Gitsaki, defines semantic transparency as
the main distinguishing criterion that could make a difference in the process of categorizing complex
combinations as idioms or collocations (163). Meaning of idioms is not predicable basing on literal
meaning of components, while the case is different with collocations. Idiom is unproductive since
items which make up idioms cannot be substituted by other items. (Although it is same case with
collocation but in collocations, there is no such non- productivity or fixity of associations
between lexical items. However, sometimes, we may see an idiom whichmeans or equals a collocation,
For example it rains cats and dogs. The items 'cats' and 'dogs' may mean or equal 'heavily'
 23

According to Palmer he stated that a very common type of idiom in English is called “phrasal verb”.
(98) These forms combination of verb plus adverb of the kind make up, give in, put down. The
meaning of these combinations cannot be predicted from an individual verb and adverb and in many
cases there is a single verb with the same or a very close meaning- invent, yield, quell. Not all
combinations of these kinds are idiomatic. Sequence of verb plus preposition can also form another
combination. Such as look after and go for, and sequences of verb, adverb and preposition, such as put
up with (‘tolerate’) or do away with (kill).

Partial idioms also exist. This refers to the situation where words have its usual meaning with the other
meaning peculiar to the particular sequence. For example, red hair refers to hair, but not hair that is
red in strict colour terms. The word White for instance, white coffee is brown in colour, white wine is
usually yellow, and white people are pink. Yet, white is, perhaps, idiomatic only to some degree and
can be interpreted as the ‘lightest in colour of that usually to be found’ what constitute idiom is a
matter of degree.

Idioms overlap with collocations, because they both involve the selection of two or more words. As
Sinclair points out, one of the main principles of the organization of language is that the choice of one
word affects the choice of others in its vicinity. Collocation is one pattern of mutual choice and idiom
is another (173)

Leech defines idioms as "sequences of words whose meanings cannot be predicted from the meanings
or the word themselves" (36). Examples of idioms are: kick the bucket, fly off the handle, spill the
beans, and red herring. Leech adds that although idioms are semantically single units, they are not
single grammatical units as words. Sinclair also gives some advice how to distinguish between a
collocation and an idiom: In principle, we call co-occurrences idioms if we interpret the co-occurrence
of as giving a single unit of meaning. If we interpret the occurrence as the selection of two related
words, each of which keeps some meaning of its own, we call it a collocation. Hence, hold talks, hold
a meeting are collocation; whereas hold sway, hold the whip hand are idioms.

Sinclair, however, says that the line between them is not always clear. This is supported by Palmer
who states that it is very difficult to decide whether a word or sequence of words is semantically
"opaque". Palmer proposes that idioms are non-equivalent in other languages, but he realizes at the
same time that "this will never work." Luckily, it is not my task to draw a clear boundary between
collocations and idioms. (81)

Usefulness of Collocations

Collocations are useful in a variety of different applications. They can be used for disambiguation,
including both word-sense and structural disambiguation. This task is based on the principle that a
 24

word in a particular sense tends to co-occur with different set of words than when it is used in another
sense. Thus bank might co-occur with river in one sense and savings and loan when used in its
financial sense. A second important application is translation: because collocations cannot be
characterized on the basis of syntactic and semantic regularities, they cannot be translated on a word-
byword basis. Instead, computational linguists use statistical techniques applied to aligned, parallel,
bilingual corpora to identify collocation translations and semi-automatically construct a bilingual
collocation lexicon. Such a lexicon can then be used as part of a machine translation program. Finally,
collocations have been extensively used as part of language generation systems. Generation systems
are able to achieve a level of fluency otherwise not possible, by using a lexicon of collocations and
word phrases during the process of word selection.

Collocational Restrictions

Palmer points out that “individual words or sequences of words will not collocate with certain groups
of words” (78). Thus, although it is possible to say The rhododendron died, the clause The
rhododendron passed away is not acceptable. From the example it is evident that some kind of
restriction was imposed on the use of pass away. According to Palmer, the restrictions are a matter of
range; an expression may occur only in a particular set of contexts. Palmer further claims that “we
know roughly the kind of nouns with which a verb or adjective may be used. So we do not reject
specific collocations simply because we have never heard them before – we rely on our knowledge of
the range” (ibid. 79). He lists three kinds of collocational restrictions: the restrictions are based wholly
on the meaning of the item, thus the phrase green cow is considered unlikely the restrictions are based
on range – a word may be used with a whole set of words that share some semantic features, this
condition accounts for the unacceptability of The rhododendron passed away (pass away requires a
human subject) or the pretty boy (pretty is used only with words denoting females) the restrictions are
collocational in the strictest sense, such as addled with eggs and brains

Conclusion

After Studying semantic fields and Collocations carefully, the paper was reached at some important
facts about these concept, most important fact is that semantic field and collocation are independent
phenomenon in linguistics. Semantic field is a set of words (or lexemes) related in meaning. Also
known as a word field, lexical field, field of meaning, and semantic system. The words in a semantic
field share a common semantic property. Most often, fields are defined by subject matter, such as body
parts, landforms, diseases, colours, foods, or kinship relations. Collocations on the other hand fall
mainly into two general groups: lexical and grammatical collocations. Words can co-occur
meaningfully and syntagmatically. Furthermore it found that collocations are semantically transparent,
the meaning of whole combination can be anticipated from meaning of constituent parts of the chunk,
 25

and therefore, collocations are not idioms. Nevertheless this research has examined the ways
collocations have been treated by linguists in the English language.

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