ABSTRACT
How should collocational relations be represented in the grammar? Different approaches to language offer different answers to this question. The easiest (and far from untrodden) way is to ignore collocations altogether. Next to that, the following types of approach could be considered: • reduce collocational behaviour to syntax; • reduce collocational behaviour to semantics; • reduce collocational behaviour to statistics; • reduce every type of dependency to collocational behaviour; • postulate a separate level or module; or • list all collocations in the lexicon. Furthermore, mixed approaches that combine some of the alternatives above can be thought of as well. In this chapter I will discuss the pros and cons of the various types of approaches. The discussion of real-life linguistic theories is meant as an illustration, not as an exhaustive overview of the literature. Before I come to a conclusion, there is a separate section on the usefulness of the notion ‘head’ with respect to collocations.
