Collocation categories

Grant and Nation (2006) suggest that further distinctions can be made between different types of collocations on the basis of the way the meanings of the parts contribute to the meaning of the whole. Grant and Nation (2006) distinguish core idioms, figuratives and literals using the two criteria of compositionality and figurativeness (Grant & Bauer, 2004).

Core idioms are non-compositional (the meanings of the parts do not really reflect the meaning of the whole) and non-figurative. Frequent examples include so and so , and what have you, by and large, etc. Grant and Bauer (2004) found 104 core idioms, but the three core idioms, as well , as well as, and of course were additionally found in this study. These three core idioms were not included in idiom dictionaries used as the data source in their study.

Figuratives are also non-compositional but they are figurative in that by using an interpretation strategy the literal meaning can be linked to the figurative meaning. Frequent examples include stepping stones, at the end of the day, head over heels . Literals are compositional and non-figurative. The parts directly relate to the meaning of the whole — thank you very much, all the time, twice a week . It is worth classifying these items into different categories because different categories of multi-word units need to be treated in a different way when they are taught and learned. Table 4 summarises the types of collocational groups discussed above.

TABLE 4 Types of Collocational Groups
Core idioms (e.g. by and large)        Cannot be predicted or analysed
Figuratives (e.g. stepping stone)      Cannot be predicted and need to be interpreted
ONCEs (a long face)                        Only one element cannot be predicted
Literals (e.g. twice a week)              Can be predicted or analysed

The use of the category of ONCEs could be unnecessary because the one non-compositional element that ONCEs contain could be considered a polysemous or homonymous use of a word. For example, the word long of long face is used with the meaning of gloomy or worried which is not related to the notion of length. So it was considered non-compositional but some might argue that use of long comes from its polysemous use. That is, the word long could be used in more than one sense. [So ONCEs could be considered Core Idioms.]