Problems With Collocation In English

It’s a well known fact that English is one of the most challenging languages to learn. The difficulty students have with it depends on what their first language is; English is going to be easier to learn if the students ' mother tongue language already has the same roots of English, and is therefore more closely related to it. Mastering collocations in English is one of the problematic areas for EFL students. One of the problems with collocation is its arbitrary nature: there is no “rule” that it’s “in regard to” and not “on regard to”—it just is. The traditional vocabulary list may be of little value as words are not learned and used in isolation but rather with the phrases they occur in. Deuter et al (2002: vii) define Collocation

Collocation as a linguistic phenomenon, it was first introduced by Firth (1957). To Martynska, (2004, p.2): define a combination of words associated with each other
-Heavy meal
وجبة دسمة ( Al-Hafiz: 2004:224).

Grimm, (2009, p.25) pointed out that Collocations consist of two parts: "the base and the collocate". Considering the example above, 'meal ' is the base element, and 'heavy ' is the collocate.

2.1 Classification of English Collocations

Depending on the degree of occurrence collocations are classified into the following kinds:

1-Open Collocations: Cartre (1987, p.63) defines open collocation as which have the capacity to keep company with a wide range of words
-catch a train يلحق بالقطار
-catch a cold يصاب بالبرد
-catch fire تنشب فيه النيران
-catch a fish يصاد سمكة

2-Restricted collocations: which co-occur with a small number of words.

3-Bound collocations: are described as " a bridge between restricted collocations and idioms; i.e. one of 1the elements is uniquely selective of the other" Cowie (1981: 228). This type is relatively

base and 'الكلمة المتلازمة ', i.e. the collocate word. In the examples above (النعاس) is the base element, and (غلب) is the collocate element.

. 3.1. Classification of Arabic Collocations

Emery (1991, p. 23) identify the following types of Arabic collocations:

1. Open collocations where the elements are freely commutable and each element can be used in a common literal sense: ماء صاف Pure water (Al-Hafiz, 2004:306) Troubled water (ibid)ماء عكر
2. Restricted collocations are those combinations of words that show restricted commutability:
هزيمة نكراء crushing defeat (ibid: 360)
جريمة نكراء detestable crime (Al-Hafiz, 2004:11)

3-Bound collocations fall between bound collocations and idioms, in this kind one partner of the cluster selects the other: Fierce war (ibid: 118) حرب ضروس

3.2 Categories of Arabic Lexical Collocations
Grim (2009) mentions the following categories of the Arabic lexical collocations:
1. noun+verb bees buzz
3. noun + adjective:
4. noun+ noun: a bouquet of flower
5. adjective + noun: best regards
6. verb + adverb: argue heatedly
7. adjective + adverb