1. VOCABULARY CONNECTIONS:
MULTI-WORD ITEMS IN
ENGLISH.
By Gabriela Quezada Cabezas

2. Collocation
• Sinclair sets out 2 principles which account for the
structural patterning of lexis.
Is a way of
Is essentiallya traditional
seeng language
approach to language:
text as the result
compare slot-and-filler
of a very large
Open Choice
approaches, and the Principle
number of
distinction between
complex choices.
syntagm and paradigm.
Is that a language user has
It restricts the
available to him or her a large
choices not just
number of semi-preconstructed
in a given slot, The Idiom
phrases that constitute single
but in the Principle
choices, even though they might
surrounding co-
appear to be analysable into
textual slots
segments.

3. Multi-word items: terms and categories
Multi-word Item
• A multi-word item is a Multi word items are the result of
vocabulary item which consists lexical (and semantic) processes of
of a sequence of two or more fossilisation and word-formation.
words. This sequence of words
semantically and/or syntactically Rather than the results of the
forms a meaningful and operation of grammatical rules
inseparable unit.

4. Multi-word items: terms and categories
• There are three important criteria which help distinguish holistic multi word
items from other kinds of string
• Is the degree to which a multi-word item is
conventionalised in the language.
Institutionalisation • Discusses the process and fact of
institutionalisation or, in his terms,
“lexicalization”.
• Is the degree to which a multi-word item is
Fixedness frozen as a sequence of words.
• Is the degree to which a multi-word item cannot
be interpreted on a word-by-word basis, but has
Non- a specialised unitary meaning.
compositionaly • Non-compositionality can also relate to
grammar or pragmatic function.

5. Types of Multi-word Item
Compounds
 Are the largest and most tangible group, but the least interesting.
 They may differ from single words only by being written as two or more orthographic
words.
 They cannot be separated, since variable hyphenation conventions blur the distinction
between compound multi-word items and polymorphemic single words.
Phrasal Verbs
 Are combinations of verbs and adbervial or prepositional particles.
 The verbs are typically monosyllabic.
 The commonest particles are up and out, followed by off, in, on and down.
 Phrasal verbs have particular syntactic problems such as the placement of any
nominal or pronominal objects with respect to the verb.

6. Types of Multi-word Item
Idioms
 They have holistic meanings which cannot be retrieved from the individual meanings
of the component words.
 Idioms are typically metaphorical in historical or etymological terms.
 Idioms rate highly in terms of non-compositionality.
Fixed phrases
 They include items such as of course, at least, in fact, etc.
 Many of these are strongly institutionalised, in that they are very high frequency items,
and many are strongly fixed.
Prefabs
 Prefabs are preconstructed phrase, phraseological chunks, stereotyped collocations,
or semi fixed strings which are tied to discoursal situations and which form
structuring devices. Example: The thing/fact/point/ is that…
 They are institutionalised because they are consistently and frequently used as
particular kinds of signal or convention, but they often vary rather than being
completely frozen.

7. Models of multi-word items
Semantics-based Syntax-based
 The most traditional
 They attempt to differetiate
between categories of multi-  Take grammatical well-
word items according to formedness as their starting-
degrees of compositionality. point.
 They aim to identify, as it
were, the irreducible semantic
building-blocks of the lexicon
Models provide ways of categorising the different kinds of unit in the lexicon:
rather like sorting out chemical compounds from elements.

8. Multi-words items and Corpus evidence
First generation Second generation
Corpora of up to one million
words showed limited evidence Corpora of around 20 million
for many multi-word items: they words were able to improve on
proved simply too rare and too this situation.
genre-specific to show up.

9. Variability in multi-word items
British/American variations
(Hold the fort)
(Hold down the fort)
Varying lexical Unstable verbs
component (cost/pay/spend/charge an arm
(Throw in the towel/sponge) and a leg)
Truncation Transformation
(silver lining/every cloud has a (break the ice/ice-breaker/ice
silver lining) breaking)

10. Multi-word items in text and discourse
Multi-word item, text and genre by looking briefly at three extracts (pages 54 and
55)
Handbook on Opening of a report Short extract from
Painting on a soccer match screenplay
 This is a higly
 Technical piece of emotive and
writing. evaluative text.  This interchange
 It includes a lot of  Multi-word items attempts to
compound words. include the replicate natural
 The multi word item compound speech patterns.
chosen reflect the adjective gung-ho  It includes
genre: technical and some phrasal compounds,
terms and clear verbs. informal phrasal
signalling of  the idioms both verbs, prefabs and
structure and clause evaluate and form fixed phrases.
relationships. prefaces to
evaluations.
Multi-word items have important roles with respect with the structure of the text.

11. Second-Language learning perspectives
Multi-word items are
Their non-
typically presented as a
compositionality, whether
problem in teaching and
syntactic, semantic or
learning a foreign
pragmatic in nature,
language
means that they must be
recognised, learned,
The phenomena of multi- decoded and encoded as
holistic units. Foreign learners
word items and
idiomaticity are generally are therefore likely
held to be universals in to be aware of
natural languages. similar phenomena
in their firs
language.