phrase/expression/collocation

englishhobby · Sep 20, 2016

Are the words phrase/expression/collocation synonyms? Are they interchangeable?
I think that 'to go for a walk', for example, can be called either 'a phrase' or 'an expression' or 'a collocation'. Am I right?

teechar · Sep 21, 2016

englishhobby said:
Are the words phrase/expression/collocation synonyms? Are they interchangeable?

No and no. Those terms are used to for different purposes.

englishhobby said:
I think that 'to go for a walk', for example, can be called either 'a phrase' or 'an expression' or 'a collocation'. Am I right?

Yes.

GoesStation · Sep 21, 2016

Ask Are the words "phrase", "expression", and "collocation" synonyms? It's important to separate words and phrases you're discussing from those that are part of your own text. I've used double quotes, which is the usual American usage, but you can also use single quotes or italics.

englishhobby · Sep 23, 2016

teechar said:
No and no. Those terms are used to for different purposes.

Yes.

Sorry, teechar, I didn't get it, you say 'no' and then you say 'yes'.:roll:

emsr2d2 · Sep 23, 2016

You asked three questions in post #1. Teechar gave the three responses to those three questions.

englishhobby · Sep 24, 2016

emsr2d2 said:
You asked three questions in post #1. Teechar gave the three responses to those three questions.

But I can't make it out how it can be that 'to go for a walk' can be called either 'a phrase' or 'an expression' or 'a collocation', and yet these words are not interchangeable.

As far as I understand 'a phrase' and 'an expression' are almost complete synonyms, right?

teechar · Sep 25, 2016

englishhobby said:
But I can't make it out how it can be that 'to go for a walk' can be called either 'a phrase' or 'an expression' or 'a collocation', and yet these words are not interchangeable.

I don't follow your logic here! :shock:
E.g.,
Jesus was a man.
Jesus was a Jew.
Jesus was a pacifist.
Are the words in blue interchangeable?

englishhobby said:
As far as I understand 'a phrase' and 'an expression' are almost complete synonyms, right?

No. "Phrase" is a grammatical structure.

jutfrank · Sep 25, 2016

I use phrase very loosely to mean any word or string of words that can in some way be recognised as a unit of lexis. (Not just in the grammatical sense of verb phrases and noun phrases, etc.)

I don't really use the word expression at all when teaching (or talking about teaching). Many teachers would instead use the terms 'idiom' or '(semi-)fixed phrase', depending on the case.

Collocation is the instance of words frequently occurring together. For example, the phrase for a walk will often be preceded by the verb go, so we can call this a 'collocation' of verb phrase and preposition phrase.

englishhobby · Dec 4, 2016

jutfrank said:
I use phrase very loosely to mean any word or string of words that can in some way be recognised as a unit of lexis. (Not just in the grammatical sense of verb phrases and noun phrases, etc.)

I don't really use the word expression at all when teaching (or talking about teaching). Many teachers would instead use the terms 'idiom' or '(semi-)fixed phrase', depending on the case.

Collocation is the instance of words frequently occurring together. For example, the phrase for a walk will often be preceded by the verb go, so we can call this a 'collocation' of verb phrase and preposition phrase.

Then with the meaning of "expression" you've described, we can't say that "to go for a walk" is an expression, because it is not an idiom, right?

phrase/expression/collocation

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