collocation (n.)

A term used in LEXICOLOGY by some (especially FIRTHIAN) LINGUISTS to refer to the habitual co-occurrence of individual LEXICAL ITEMS. For example, auspicious collocates with occasion, event, sign, etc.; and letter collocates with alphabet, graphic, etc., on the one hand, and postman, pillar-box, etc., on the other. Collocations are, then, a type of SYNTAGMATIC lexical relation. They are linguistically predictable to a greater or lesser extent (e.g. the bond between spick and span is stronger than that between letter and pillar-box), and this differentiates them from SENSE ASSOCIATIONS, which tend to include idiosyncratic connections (e.g. mother-in-law associating with hippopotamus). Some words have no specific collocational restrictions – grammatical words such as the, of, after, in. By contrast, there are many totally predictable restrictions, as in eke + out, spick + span, and these are usually analyzed as IDIOMS, clichés, etc. Another important feature of collocations is that they are FORMAL (not SEMANTIC) statements of co-occurrence; e.g. green collocates with jealousy (as opposed to, say, blue or red), even though there is no REFERENTIAL basis for the link. Lexical items which are ‘collocated’ are said to be collocates of each other; the potential of items to collocate is known as their collocability or collocational range. A related notion is ‘semantic prosody’. Collocational restrictions are analogous to the notion of SELECTIONAL RESTRICTIONS in GENERATIVE GRAMMAR. Collocations should not be confused with the notion of word association in psychology, which refers to any kind of mental relationship between words – for example, car might produce the association New Zealand or Uncle Joe. Word associations of this kind are being increasingly studied as part of PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, especially for the light they throw on cultural differences (e.g. in relation to BILINGUALISM).