collocate
/'kɔləkeit/
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
Verb (transitive):
- To place or arrange (words, items, or things) together in a specific order or side by side, often to form a meaningful or conventional grouping.
- In linguistics, to habitually occur together with another word or phrase, forming a common combination.
Verb (intransitive):
- (Of words) To have a strong tendency to occur together frequently in a language, forming a natural-sounding phrase.
Examples of Usage
Verb (transitive):
- The editor will collocate the illustrations with the corresponding text.
- In English, we collocate 'heavy' with 'rain' but not 'strong' with 'rain'.
Verb (intransitive):
- The adjectives 'utter' and 'complete' collocate with 'nonsense'.
- 'Make' and 'decision' collocate very frequently.
Advanced Usage
In Corpus Linguistics: The term is used to describe the statistical tendency of words to co-occur. For example, researchers analyze how words collocate to understand language patterns.
- Software can identify which verbs collocate most strongly with the noun 'evidence'.
Collocational Range: Refers to the set of words a particular word typically combines with.
- The word 'rancid' has a narrow collocational range, primarily collocating with 'butter' and 'oil'.
Variants and Related Words
Collocation (n): The combination of words formed when two or more words are often used together in a way that sounds natural.
- 'Fast food' is a common collocation.
Collocational (adj): Relating to collocation.
- The exercise tests collocational knowledge.
Synonyms
- Co-occur: To occur together.
- Associate: To connect or bring into relation.
- Combine: To join or merge together.
Related Phrases
- Collocate with: This is the standard grammatical construction used with the verb.
- Which prepositions collocate with the verb 'depend'?
Verb
- group or chunk together in a certain order or place side by side
- have a strong tendency to occur side by side
- The words 'new' and 'world' collocate