A Combinatory Dictionary of English

A COMBINATORY DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH Morton Benson An important desideratum in English lexicography is the production and publication of a combinatory dictionary. Such a dictionary would provide the key grammatical and lexical collocations of English. Let us examine first why a combinatory dictionary is necessary, second, what has been done in the past, and last, what is being done at present. The need for a dictionary giving collocations, that is, recurrent combinations, is clearly demonstrated when speakers of other languages study English. Learning the fundamentals of the language—pronunciation, grammar, basic vocabulary—is but the first step. Students soon discover that the major stumbling block to mastering English is learning how to form the vast number of arbitrary collocations that are essential to spoken and written communication. There is no "logical" explanation of why one says in English to acquit of but to exonerate from. Learners of English invariably make errors such as *they mentioned him the book, *a stranger was lurking, *we are very fond, *we send you hot (or hearty) greetings, *she told when she would arrive. Both grammatical and lexical collocations must be treated in a dictionary. Grammatical collocations consist of a dominant word (usually a verb, noun, or adjective) and a dependent word, typically a preposition. The role of grammatical collocations in modern linguistics was pointed out by Noam Chomsky in his Aspects of the Theory of Syntax when he discussed constructions of the type to decide on a boat ('to choose a boat'). He contrasted this grammatically close construction ( = collocation) with the homophonic loose association of verb 4- adverbial, i.e., the free combination to decide on a boat ('to make a decision while on the boat'). It should be pointed out that the number of homophones in English created by verb 4- preposition combinations is very large. The native speaker is rarely aware of them. For example, the combination to get at means 'to suggest' in what are you 189 190A Combinatory Dictionary of English getting at? but 'to reach' in the children cannot get at the medicine chest. The combination to go for has at least seven meanings: 'to fetch' in to go for the doctor, 'to be spent' in half our money goes for food, 'to be sold' in the painting went for a hundred dollars, 'to attack' in he went straight for her, 'to try' in she went for thefirst prize, 'to apply to' in what she said goes for you too, 'to like' in / could go for her. Parenthetically, we see here how futile it is to define a verb such as to go in isolation. In many instances, English verbs used in a specific sense must be followed by a prepositional phrase. One cannot say *we will adhere or *they based their conclusions or *our committee consists. Well-formed sentences are we will adhere to instructions, they based their conclusions on the available facts, and our committee consists ofsix members. There are, of course, other verbal patterns, totally neglected in general-use dictionaries, which must be treated in a combinatory dictionary. Certain transitive verbs, for example, allow the dative movement transformation, that is, allow the shift of an indirect object, usually animate, to a position before the direct object with deletion of the preposition to: she sent the book to him—she sent him the book. However, another group of verbs does not allow this transformation. Thus, she described the book to him cannot be transformed into *she described him the book. General-use dictionaries of English pay no attention to this difference. Foreign learners of English constantly make mistakes with verbs of the describe type, such as to explain, to mention, to return, to send out. There are other types of grammatical collocations that will be mentioned later. As we close this brief introduction to grammatical collocations, it should be pointed out that both native and non-native speakers of English need guidance when American English (AE) and British English (BE) usage differs. For example, only in BE does the verb to recommend belong to the send type; thus, in BE one can say she recommended me the book. Common English (CE) has she recommended the book to...