2.2 Review of Verb-Noun Collocation
2.2.1 Definition of Verb-Noun Collocation and Verb-Noun Collocation Error Classification
The definition of verb-noun collocation has subtle differences in different studies[19-21],but most are based on the understanding of collocation and the V+N colligation. Verb-nouncollocation studies of Nesselhauf [22-23] are of great importance, which are widely recognizedand used as reference [24-26]. The following illustrates the definition of verb-noun collocationand classification of verb-noun collocation errors in Nesselhauf’s studies, the previous studieson verb-noun collocation definition and error classification, and the definition andclassification of verb-noun collocation in this study.
(1) Nesselhauf’s Understanding on Verb-Noun Collocation
Nesselhauf defined the collocation according to the “restricted sense” and divided thecombination into 3 types: free combinations, restricted collocations, and idioms [22]. Freecombinations refer to those that the verb and the noun are used are both unrestricted, so theycan be freely combined according to these senses, e.g. want a car. Collocations are related tothe sense in which the noun is used is unrestricted, but the sense of the verb is restricted, sothat the verb in the sense in which it is used can only be combined with certain nouns, e.g.take a picture. Idioms refer to those that both the verb and the noun are used in a restrictedsense, so substitution is either not possible at all or only possible to an extremely limiteddegree, e.g. kick the bucket. He explained the definition at length in his book that collocationis “phraseological rather than frequency-based, a type of word combination in a certaingrammatical pattern, be used both to refer to an abstract unit of language and its instantiationsin texts” [23].
Nesselhauf classified verb-noun collocation errors into 9 types: the error of verbs (wrongchoice of verb or non-existent verb), the error of nouns (wrong choice of noun or non-existentnoun), the error of usage 1 (combination exists but is not used correctly), the error of usage 2(combination does not exist and cannot be correct by exchanging single elements), the errorof verb prepositions (preposition of a prepositional verb missing present though unacceptable,or wrong), the error of noun prepositions (preposition of a noun missing present thoughunacceptable, or wrong), the error of determiners (article or pronoun missing, present thoughtunacceptable, or wrong), the error of numbers (noun used in singular instead of plural or viceversa) and the error of structure (syntactic structure wrong) [22]. In his study, he stipulated thatif a combination was accepted by two native speakers or by one native speaker together withthe situation that there are two times in different texts in BNC[22].
3 Theoretical Framework......................................19
3.1 Development of Conceptual Transfer...........................19
3.2 Conceptual Transfer Hypothesis................................20
4 Methodology.................................22
4.1 Research Questions....................................22
4.2 Corpus Description...................................... 22
5 Results and Discussion......................................26
5.1 Frequency of Verb-Noun Collocation Errors..........................26
5.2 Types of Verb-Noun Collocation Errors..............................27
5 Results and Discussion
5.1 Frequency of Verb-Noun Collocation Errors
This study is based on the self-built corpus to analyze the usage of verb-noun collocationerrors. After taggi
