“Għidli ma’ min tagħmilha...” : daqqa t’għajn lejn il-kollokazzjoni

Abstract

Dan l-istudju jagħti ħarsa lejn il-kollokazzjoni, il-fenomenu ta’ kif il-kliem ifittex kliem ieħor b’ċerta regolarità, jekk mhux ukoll b’mod esklussiv. Wara li jintwera kif il-livell lessikali tal-lingwa beda jingħata l-importanza li tistħoqqlu minn Firth u oħrajn li mxew fuq il-passi tiegħu, jitfissru l-karatteristiċi ewlenin tal-kollokazzjoni. Tingħata attenzjoni partikolari liż-żewġ approċċi ewlenin f’dan il-qasam, dak frażjoloġiku u dak lessikali, li jibbaża aktar fuq il-frekwenza. B’referenza għal dan tal-aħħar, jiġi spjegat kif l-għanqud lessikali jista’ jintuża biex jiġi strutturat il-lessiku ta’ oqsma tad-diskors partikolari u kif jista’ jservi ta’ muftieħ biex jissolvew każijiet ta’ polisemija u omonimija. Dan kollu jiġi inkwadrat fil-qafas tal-lingwistika tal-korpora li tixħet dawl uniku fuq il-lingwa bid-data li tipprovdi u bil-metodoloġija li tħaddem.

This study provides an overview of collocation, the phenomenon of how words co-occur with other words with a certain regularity, if not exclusively. It outlines how the lexical level of language was recognised and given its due importance by Firth and his followers, and highlights the main characteristics of collocation. Special attention is given to the two main approaches in this field, namely the phraseological and the lexical, which is more frequency-based. With reference to the latter, it is shown how lexical clusters can be used to structure the lexicon in particular fields of discourse, and how it can be key in solving cases of polysemy and homonymy. All this is framed within the context of corpus linguistics, which sheds unique light on language through the data it provides and the methodology it employs.