Lexical semantics and pragmatics
Collocations
 Two or more words that often go together. These combinations just sound "right" to
native English speakers, who use them all the time. On the other hand, other
combinations may be unnatural and just sound "wrong". Look at these examples:
Natural English... Unnatural English...
the fast train
fast food
the quick train
quick food
a quick shower a fast shower
a fast meal
a quick meal
 two collocates, one is dominant
 con locare – zajedno se javiti
 they are more transparent than idioms
How to learn collocations
 Be aware of collocations, and try to recognize them when you see or hear them.
 Treat collocations as single blocks of language. Think of them as individual blocks or
chunks, and learn strongly support, not strongly + support.
 When you learn a new word, write down other words that collocate with it (remember
rightly, remember distinctly, remember vaguely, remember vividly).
Types of Collocations
There are several different types of collocation made from combinations of verb, noun, adjective
etc. Some of the most common types are:







Adverb + Adjective: completely satisfied (NOT downright satisfied)
Adjective + Noun: excruciating pain (NOT excruciating joy)
Noun + Noun: a surge of anger (NOT a rush of anger)
Noun + Verb: lions roar (NOT lions shout)
Verb + Noun: commit suicide (NOT undertake suicide)
Verb + Expression With Preposition: burst into tears (NOT blow up in tears)
Verb + Adverb: wave frantically (NOT wave feverishly)
Examples:
-
skip school
refuse flatly
catch disease, spread disease
-
heated discussion
thick hair, dense fog
heavy rain
heavy smoker
make a wish
Metaphor
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely
players
They have their exits and their entrances
William Shakespeare





a figure of speech that says that one thing is another different thing. This allows us to use
fewer words and forces the reader or listener to find the similarities.
the word metaphor comes from the Greek word metapherin (meaning "transfer").
expressing of the unfamiliar by means of familiar according to some sort of similarity
not only a poetic device, it is also a cognitive need and principle – through metaphor
man learns about the world, it is central to thinking (George Lakoff)
dead Metaphors:
In the phrase "to grasp the concept" the physical action "to grasp" is used as a metaphor
for "to understand" (which is non-physical). But this phrase has been used so often that
most English speakers do not have an image of the physical action in their mind. This
metaphor has died; it is a "dead metaphor".
Idioms




a group of words whose individual meanings are sacrificed for the union
a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary
definitions of the individual words, which can make idioms hard for students to
understand
various transparency of idioms – the lower the transparency of an idiom, the higher its
metaphoric value
Idioms are fun and useful expressions that usually cannot be understood by defining the
separate words. For example, if your mother says, "I think it's time to hit the hay", she
means, "I think it's bed-time"! You would not be able to understand her by looking up the
words hit and hay. Like phrasal verbs, these expressions need to be memorized as a
whole.
Examples:
-
to give somebody a cold shoulder
to rob the cradle: to marry or have a relationship with someone much younger
fly off the handle (get very angry)
once bitted, twice shy
to put on your thinking cap: to think very hard about something
raining cats and dogs
kick the bucket
bury the hatchet
to sell like hot cakes
as dead as a dodo
he feels like a dog with two tails
as fit as a fiddle
as fresh as a daisy
as happy as the day is long
as rare as hen’s teeth
to laugh like a drain
to feel like a million bucks
as nutty as a fruitcake
as old as hills
to feel like a bear with sore head
beat/kick the hell out of sb
as red as a beet
as daft as a brush
to look like sth that cat brought/dragged in
to smoke like a chimney
to swear like a trooper
to work like a dog/slave
as regular as clockwork
as sick as a dog/ as a parrot
as ugly as a sin