Some Verb-Intensifier Collocations in American and British English

Abstract

N A RECENT ISSUE of American Speech, Dwight Bolinger made an eloquent plea for the importance of understanding the lexicon, pointing out that linguists have generally been content to leave lexical study to the dictionary-makers.1 The language models adopted by most American linguists allow little space for the treatment of vocabulary: the relationships between words-in the flow of speech and in paradigmatic sets-is allocated to the two major components, syntax and semantics, and the lexicon is seen as a ragbag of the irregularities and idiosyncracies in language. In a period when most linguists are concerned exclusively with rules it is not surprising that the lexicon is neglected as of little interest. Many British linguists, on the other hand, have recognized lexis as a separate component or level of analysis of language. In particular, they have drawn attention to one aspect of lexical relationships, the tendency for particular lexical items to cooccur. These relationships are seen as forming lexical patterns syntagmatically and as constituting the basis for lexical sets paradigmatically. So far, most of what has been said has been suggestive and programmatic.2