Chapter Three

Collocations in Arabic
3.1. Introduction
This chapter presents collocations in Arabic language. It begins with an
overview of the term “collocations” in Arabic and provides the Arab’s different
perspectives regarding the phenomenon in Arabic. Then, it describes different
types of collocations in Arabic. Also, Arabic collocations in lexicography and
Arabic corpus studies are also addressed.

3.2. Collocations in Arabic

The term “collocation” in Arabic did not receive much attention until the
last three decades. As previously mentioned, the word collocation has been
defined as “the habitual co-occurrence of two or more words together in any
language”. Ghazala (2011: 61) refers to collocation as “words which are usually
found next each other, or are ‘co-located’ with one another”. According to
Dickens et al (2002: 71) define the term “to collocate” means “to typically occur
in close proximity with; hence a “collocation” is an occurrence of one word in
close proximity with another”. Although Arabic is a very rich language, not many
researches have tackled the phenomenon as it deserves. The studies of Arabic
collocations are insufficient and somehow is considered as a neglected area.
However, some fundamental and empirical researches tried to investigate the
phenomenon and give an insight on the collocations in Arabic. These studies
include Husamaddin (1985), Emery (1991), Ghazala (1993, 1995) and Hafiz
(2002). The main function of collocations as Ghazala (2004: 23) reveals that
collocation have stylistics functions in language that have to be taken into
consideration in translation. He proclaims that “the aesthetic function, what he
calls ‫ الوظيفة الجمالية‬al wathifa al jamaalya, especially in Arabic, is the most
important stylistic function of collocations”.
3.3. Types of Arabic Collocations
Several studies have been done trying to classify Arabic collocations into
recognized categories. Most of the studies concerned with classifying
collocations relied on the grammatical patterns in Arabic. They divided them into
different patterns that describe sounds of the animals and parts of the body for
instances. However, other studies distinguished between collocations and idioms
in Arabic.
3.3.1. Chazala’s Classification
Ghazala (1993) categorizes collocations in Arabic based on three different
patterns which are; the relationship between the constituents of the combination,
the grammatical patterns and the stylistic pattern. Ghazala’s designation of
Arabic collocations lies in twenty different patterns. However, the classification
he made of collocations was purely grammatical in which he focused on the
grammatical gathering of word classes depending on the accompanying words.
The first pattern he proposed is made up of an adjective and a noun. Consider the
following examples:
Table (1) shows the adjective + noun pattern in Arabic collocations
En. Combination Examples Ar. Combination Examples
Hard labor ‫ مخاض عسير‬/ ‫اشغال شاقة‬
Net weight ‫الوزن الصافي‬
Black market ‫سوق سودا‬
Straying sheep ‫ شاردة‬/ ‫غنم قاصية‬
Idle talk ‫كالم فارغ‬
Lukewarm reception ‫استقبال فاتر‬
Warm reception ‫استقبال حار‬

Following the aforementioned pattern, there is some certain patterns that

have the combination but used to describe distasteful food. The list includes the
following examples:
Table (2) shows the special pattern that made up of adjective + noun to describe bad food.
En. Combination Ar. Combination
addled eggs ‫ خرب‬/ ‫بيض فاسد‬
bad milk ‫ خرب‬/ ‫حليب فاسد‬
putrid milk / fish ‫ سمك فاسد‬/ ‫لحم‬
rancid butter ‫ فاسدة‬/ ‫زبدة زنخة‬
rotten fruit ‫ عفنة‬/ ‫فاكهه فاسدة‬
spoiled / bad meat ‫لحم فاسد‬

The second type of collocations proposed by Ghazala consists of verb +

Noun. The following are examples of this pattern:
Table (3) presents the second pattern which consists of verb + noun

attend a lecture ‫يحضر محاضرة‬

exert an effort ‫يبذل مجهودا‬
pass a law ‫يسن قانونا‬
run a company ‫يدير شركة‬
teach a lesson ‫يلقن درسا‬
win confidence ‫يكسب الثقة‬
score a victory ‫يحرز انتصارا‬
seize the opportunity ‫ينتهز الفرصة‬

The third pattern of Arabic collocations consists of Noun + Noun.

Examples of this pattern are the following:
Table (4) shows pattern number three that made up of noun + noun

brain drain ‫ هجرة االدمغة‬nerve cell ‫خلية (أعصاب) عصبية‬

gas cylinder )‫ اسطوانة غاز (غازية‬status quo ‫الوضع الراهن‬
death sentence ‫ حكم اإلعدام‬attorney general ‫النائب العام‬
essay bank ‫ بنك المعلومات‬state university ‫جامعة حكومية‬
honey moon ‫ شهر عسل‬poet laureate ‫امير الشعراء‬
 Ghazala (1995) promulgates that the abovementioned collocations have
different grammatical patterns. Although it is acceptable in Arabic to ‫هجرة دمغة‬
and )‫اسطوانة غاز (غازية‬, other structures are not acceptable to do the same for
instance, the structure of “honey moon” in Arabic “‫ ”شهر عسلي‬is not correct and
“poet laureate” in Arabic is not correct to say “‫ ”امير شعراني‬or in “brain drain” as
in Arabic "‫”هجرة دماغية‬. The meaning in the previous collocations in Arabic will
be completely different as in “‫ ”هجرة دماغية‬will be in English “cerebral brain”
which is different from “‫ هجرة االدمغة‬brain drain”.

The fourth pattern of Arabic grammatical collocation based on Ghazala’s

(1995) classification is noun + noun (the –of – genitive ‫)االضافة‬.
Table (5) represents pattern four that composed of noun + noun and the genitive

loss of memory ‫ فقدان الذاكرة‬the heart of matter ‫جوهر االشياء‬

association of ideas ‫ توارد األفكار‬the throes of death ‫سكرات الموت‬
a sigh of ideas ‫ تنفس الصعداء‬the break of dawn ‫بزوغ الفجر‬
the court of appeal ‫ محكمة االستئناف‬the hour of decision ‫ساعة الحسم‬
the depth of despair ‫أعماق الياس‬ a ghost of a chance ‫شبح الفرصة‬

The fifth pattern of Arabic grammatical collocation is made up of noun +

and + noun (addition ‫)العطف‬. Consider the following examples:
Table (6) shows the fifth pattern which consists of noun + noun and the addition

means and ends ‫ الوسائل و الغايات‬bread and butter ‫قوت اليوم‬/‫لقمة عيش‬
food and drinks ‫ الطعام والشراب‬good and evil ‫الخير والشر‬
form and content ‫ الشكل والمضمون‬vice and virtue ‫الفضيلة والرذيلة‬
terms and conditions ‫ بنود وشروط‬heart and soul ‫قلبا وقالبا‬
goods and chattels ‫ اموال منقولة وغير منقولة‬wonderments & bewilderments
‫عجائب وغرائب‬
 Despite that the abovementioned examples seem to be easy to interpret,
some of these collocations may have different structure notwithstanding. For
instance, the structure of “he is with us heart and soul” “‫ ”هو معنا قلبا وقالبا‬has the
same meaning but in a different structure that includes an adverb “he is with us
wholeheartedly”.

The sixth pattern of Arabic grammatical collocations is made up of

adjective + another adjective. The following are some examples:
Table (7) shows the sixth pattern which made up of adjective + another adjective

hale and hearty ‫ بصحة جيدة‬healthy and well ‫بصحة وعافية‬

alive and kicking ‫ حي يرزق‬well and good ‫علي خير ما يرام‬
right and proper ‫تمام التمام‬/ ‫في احسن حال‬

The seventh structure of collocation in Arabic consists of an adverb + an

adverb. Consider the following examples:
Table (8) represents pattern seven that consists of adverb + adverb

wholly and heartedly ‫ من أعماق القلب‬/‫ بالتمام والكمال‬/‫بكل اخالص‬

secretly and publicly ‫ في السر و العلن‬/ ‫سرا وعالنية‬
willy nelly ‫شاء ام ابي‬/ ‫رغما عن انفه‬

The eighth structure of Arabic collocations deals with the different sounds
of animals, insects and certain objects. The pattern consists of noun + verb.
Consider the following examples:
Table (9) presents pattern number eight that made up of noun + verb

bees buzz ‫ دوي النحل‬bells ring/ tolls ‫زنين االجراس‬

cats mew ‫ مواء القطط‬dogs bark ‫نباح الكالب‬
donkeys bray ‫نهيق الحمار‬ doors creak ‫صرير األبواب‬
flies buzz ‫ طنين الذباب‬lions roar ‫زئير األسد‬
snakes hiss ‫ فحيح االفاعي‬sparrow chirp ‫زقزقة العصافير‬
 trees rustle ‫ حفيف األشجار‬wolves howl ‫عواء الذئاب‬

The ninth pattern of grammatical collocations in Arabic is “prepositional

collocations”. It is divided into four subcategories.
a. The first pattern is composed of “Noun + preposition”. The following are
some examples of this pattern:
Table (10) shows prepositional collocations that consists of noun + preposition

a Play on words ‫ تالعب بااللفاظ‬a claim for ‫ادعاء ب‬

a Protest against ‫ احتجاج علي‬a burst at ‫رمي علي‬
a pride in ‫تفاخر بي‬ ignorance of something ‫الجهل بشيء‬

b. The second subclass of the prepositional collocation consists of preposition

+ noun. Consider the following examples:
Table (11) presents subclass of prepositional collocation

by accident ‫ بمحض الصدفة‬on call/ duty doctor ‫طبيب مناوب‬

in advance ‫ سلفا‬/‫ مقدما‬on the alert ‫على أهبة االستعداد‬
on one’s advice )‫ في مصلحة (فالن‬in turn ‫بدوره‬
in return ‫ بالمقابل‬by surprise ‫على حين غرة‬
on the contrary ‫على عكس‬ ‫على حساب‬
under the patronage ‫تحت رعاية‬

c. The third subclass of the prepositional collocation in Arabic is made up of

an adjective + a preposition. The following are examples of the pattern:
Table (12) includes a subclass of prepositional collocation

full of ‫ مليء ب‬fond of ‫مغرم ب‬

angry at ‫ على‬/ ‫ غاضب من‬afraid of ‫خائف من‬
foreign to ‫ اجنبي عن‬/‫ غريب عن‬contrary to ‫ معاكس ل‬/ ‫على عكس‬
made of/ from ‫مصنوع من‬ angry with ‫زعالن من‬
 d. The last subclass of the ninth pattern of Arabic grammatical collocations is
made up of a verb + a preposition. Consider the following examples:

Table (13) shows subclass of prepositional collocation

long for ‫ يشتاق الى‬wait for somebody )‫ينتظر (فالن‬

call at ‫ ينادي على‬protest against ‫يحتج على‬
dream of / with ‫يحلم ب‬

The tenth type of grammatical collocations of Arabic is the collocation of

similes (as-as collocations). It is made up of as + adjective + as. Consider the
following examples:
Table (14) lists examples of as + adjective + as collocation

as beautiful as a lark/ as pretty as a picture ‫ من الصورة‬/‫ من القمر‬/‫أحلى من البدر‬

as red as a beetroot ‫ الشمندر‬/‫أشد حمرة من الدم‬
as patient as donkey ‫أصبر من الحمار‬
as faithful as a dog ‫أوفى من الكلب‬
as strong as a lion ‫أقوي من األسد‬
as stubborn as a mule ‫أعند من البغل‬
as sweet as honey )‫أحلي من العسل (السكر‬
as old as the hills ‫ غارق في القدم‬/ ‫أقدم من التاريخ‬
As cunning as a fox ‫أمكر من الثعلب‬
as bad as bad can be ‫أسوء من السوء‬
as slender as thread ‫ العود‬/ ‫أرفع من الخيط‬
as soft as a snake ‫أملس من (أنعم) من الحية‬
as quick as lightening ‫أسرع من البرق‬
as swift as an arrow ‫ أسرع من لمح البصر‬/ ‫أسرع من السهم‬
Job’s patience ‫صبر أيوب‬
 Ghazala (1995) designates another subclass in Arabic grammatical
collocations he named it “parts of the countable nouns collocations” in which he
refers to them as fixed expressions. This subclass is considered sui generis in
terms of each noun is a part from the whole expression that can be counted.
Consider the following examples:
Table (15) presents examples of collocations of parts of countable nouns

a bouquet of flowers ‫ باقة ورد‬a crowd of people ‫حشد من الناس‬

a flock of sheep ‫ثلة من الغنم‬ a herd of buffalo ‫قطيع من الجواسيس‬
a herb of cattle ‫قطيع من الماشية‬ a pack of dogs ‫فريق من الكالب‬
a pride of lions ‫ قطيع من األسود‬a school of whales ‫قطيع حيتان‬
a set of glasses ‫طقم من الكؤوس‬ a swarm (colony) of bees
‫ سرب النحل‬/‫سرب من النحل‬

The last pattern of Arabic grammatical colocations designates “parts of

uncountable nouns collocation”, in which the collocations is a part from an
uncountable noun in Arabic. Consider the following examples:
Table (16) shows examples of uncountable noun collocations

an act of violence ‫ عمل عنف‬an article of clothing ‫قطعة قماش‬

a bit of information ‫ معلومة‬a bit of advice ‫نصيحة‬
a cake of soap ‫ صابونة‬an item of news ‫ خبر‬/ ‫نبأ‬
a part of butter ‫ قالب زبدة‬a plot of ground ‫رقعة أرض‬
a portion of cheese / butter ‫ مكعب جبنة‬a piece of music ‫قطعة موسيقية‬
a loaf of bread ‫ رغيف خبز‬a glass of water ‫كآس من الماء‬
a cup of tea ‫ شاي‬/ ‫ كوب قهوة‬a bottle of milk ‫زجاجة حليب‬

Ghazala’s second classification is made according to the relationship between

the constituents of the combinations. He designates Arabic collocations into ten
different patterns:
 Table (17) shows Ghazala’s second classification of collocations
1. Ironical collocation the hero of heroes ‫بطل االبطال‬
2. uncertain or indecisive a lengthy talk ‫حديث طويل‬
3. neutral collocations agony of death ‫سكرة الموت‬
4. uncomplimentary straying sheep ‫غنم قاصية‬
collocations
5. Complimentary sweet – tongued ‫طري اللسان‬
collocations
6. figurative collocations to lose one’s senses ‫طار صوابه‬
7. Direct collocations to be bare footed ‫حافي القدمين‬
8. Emphatic collocations to shake strongly ‫هز هزا‬
9. Non-homogenous a warm reception ‫استقبال حار‬
collocation
10. Homogeneous collocation an idea occurred to him ‫خاطر له خاطر‬

The third classification of Arabic collocations made by Ghazala (1993a) is

based on the stylistic patterns. He classifies it into five patterns:
Table (18) presents Ghazala’s third classification of collocations

１. Emphasis very few ‫قلة قليلة‬

２. Exaggeration delicious & delicate ‫لذ وطاب‬
1. Aestheticism in the course of ‫في خضم‬
2. Euphemism an honorable defeat ‫هزيمة مشرفه‬
3. Standard verses To know how to seize opportunities
‫يعرف من اين تؤكل الكتف‬

3.3.2. Emery’s Classification

Emery (1991: 59) refers to collocation as “a kind of composite element
(composed of words), other kinds being idioms and combinations” he designates
four types of word combinations; open collocations, restricted collocations,
bound collocations and idioms.
a. Open Collocations: In this type of collocations, the elements of the
combination are freely to combine. As well as, the elements can be used
in a literal sense. For instance, the war /battle + began /ended ‫بدأت‬
‫ إنتهت الحرب‬/‫الحرب‬.
b. Restricted Collocations: unlike open collocation, restricted collocation
is somehow different in terms of the elements, could be either literal or
figurative. For example, “explode a myth or belief” the verb in that
collocation is figurative. While in “clench one’s teeth” the verb in that
collocation is literal. In Arabic, this structure is pretty similar to the
English one.
e.g. subject verb
‫ نشبت بدأت الحرب‬+ ‫إندلعت‬
the war/ battle + broke out/ flared up
e.g. verb + object
‫ المفاوضات‬/ ‫ المعركة‬+ ‫خاض‬
he rushed into / embarked on + battle / negotiations
e.g. adjective + noun
‫ طاحنة‬/ ‫ ضارية‬+ ‫ حرب‬/ ‫معركة‬
devastating / damaging + war / battle

c. Bound collocations: Cowie (1981: 228, cited in Emery 1991: 61) refers
to bound collocations as “a bridge between collocations and idioms”.
This type is non-literal. One element of this combination attracts the
other in a distinctive way.
e.g. huge/ tremendous army
‫جيش جرار‬
e.g. ‫حرب ضروس‬
fierce war
 d. Idioms: the constitute elements of idioms are opaque as mentioned
earlier which form a semantic unit.
e.g. ‫حرب باردة‬
the cold war

e.g. ‫ حرب النجوم‬/ ‫حرب الكواكب‬

stars war

3.3.3. Husamaddin’s Classification

Husamaddin (1985, cited in Brashi 2005: 33) on the other hand, proclaims
that collocation is one form of the idiomatic expressions. He defines it ‫"المصاحبة‬
" ‫“ االعتيادية لكلمة ما في اللغة بكلمات معينة‬the usual co-occurrence of a word with
another in any language” (the author’s translation). Husamaddin proposed a
number of certain collocational restrictions that govern the collocability of words
in Arabic. These collocational restrictions are; association agreement,
collocational range and co-occurrence.

Association agreement means that the two combined words should have
some kind of harmony between its constituents. For instance, the Arabic
equivalence of collocations such as a pretty woman “‫" إمراه جميلة‬or a handsome
man" ‫ " رجل وسيم‬is the same. This means that in Arabic it is not acceptable to say
pretty man or vice versa.

Collocational range refers to how many words can easily combine together
to form collocations. For example, the words die which means (maat) in Arabic
has plenty of words that can collocate with. It can go easily with words related to
human beings or an animate. Co-occurrence of collocations means the normal
combination of words together in any language.
 Husamaddin (1985, cited in Brashi 2005: 35), categorizes collocations in
Arabic into seven different types. His classification based on specific elements
such as the sounds made by different animals or cutting objects, names of places
etc.

The first pattern of Arabic collocations based on a description of the sounds

made by different animals and some objects. Consider the following examples:
Table (19) represents collocations based on animals’ sounds

the braying of a donkey ‫ نهيق الحمار‬the mooing of a cow ‫خوار البقرة‬

the bleating of a sheep ‫ ثغاء الغنم‬the howling of a wolf ‫عواء الذئب‬
the barking of a dog ‫ نباح الكلب‬the cooing of a pigeon ‫هديل الحمام‬
the cawing of a crow ‫ نعيق الغراب‬the hooting of an owl ‫نعيب البوم‬
the rumbling of thunder ‫ هزيم الرعد‬the rustling of trees ‫حفيف الشجر‬

The second type of Arabic collocation according to Husamaddin (1985)

consists of the verbs related to the act of cutting different objects depending on
the nouns with which they collocate.
Table (20) shows collocations of verbs related to act of cutting

To cut wool ‫ جز الصوف‬To cut hair ‫قص الشعر‬

To sharpen a pencil ‫ بري القلم‬To pick a flower ‫قطف الزهرة‬
To harvest plants ‫حصد النباتات‬

Another subcategory of this pattern is related to of cutting parts of the body.

Consider the following examples:
Table (21) lists a subcategory of cutting parts of the body collocations

to cut one’s nose ‫ جدع أنفه‬to cut one’s ear ‫حلمة اذنه‬
to cut one’s lip ‫ شرم شفته‬to cut one’s eyelid ‫شتر جفنه‬
to cut one’s hand ‫جذم يده‬
 The third type of Arabic collocations refers to the place where animals and
insects inhabit. The following are examples of this pattern:
Table (22) includes collocations of animals’ places

a horse stable ‫ إصطبل خيل‬a cattle’s pen ‫حظيرة ماشية‬

a lion’s den ‫ عرين أسد‬a bird’s nest ‫عش طير‬
a lizard’s hole ‫ حجر ضب‬a beehive ‫خلية نحل‬

The fourth type of Arabic collocations refers to a group of objects.

Consider the following examples:
Table (23) shows examples of colocations of a group of objects

a bouquet of flowers ‫ باقة ورد‬a bunch of grapes ‫عنقود عنب‬

a bundle of wood ‫ حزمة حطب‬a pile of stone ‫كومة حجارة‬

The fifth type of Arabic collocations is based on some related parts of

objects. Consider the following examples:
Table (24) presents examples of collocations of parts of objects

a piece of bread ‫ كسرة من الخبز‬a piece of meat ‫فدرة من اللحم‬

a piece of date ‫ كتلة من التمر‬a measure of flour ‫نسفة من الدقيق‬

The sixth pattern of Arabic collocation based on Husamaddin’s

classification is related to revealing different parts of the body. The following are
some examples of this pattern:
Table (25) shows examples of uncovering parts of the body’s collocations

to uncover one’s head ‫حسر عن رأسه‬

to uncover one’s leg ‫كشف عن ساقه‬
to be bare footed ‫حاف من النعل‬
to uncover one’s face ‫سفر عن وجهه‬
to uncover one’s arm ‫أبدى عن ذراعه‬
 The last type of collocations in Arabic is related to the movements of
different parts of the body. Consider the following examples:
Table (26) lists examples of collocations of movements of parts of the body

the beating of the heart ‫خفقان القلب‬

the trembling of the hand ‫إرتعاش اليد‬
The ticking of the eye ‫إختالج العين‬

3.3.4. Hafiz’s Classification

Hafiz (2004) claims t collocations is motivated by semantic relation rather
than lexical relation as Emery (1991) assumes to be “lexical relation”. He
proposes an example of the word “beat” ‫ ضرب‬in Arabic and how it collocates
with a wide range of nouns which gives rise to the different meanings of the verb
“beat” ‫ ضرب‬in the same manner with the following:
heart
coin
vein
tent
example
Also, the same verb “beat” ‫ ضرب‬can collocate with prepositional phrases
such as:
in the land
in the water
on the hand

The abovementioned examples are empirical evidence on the clear

semantic motivation between the verb ‫ ضرب‬and its collocated lexical (which is a
non-contextual) meaning of the verb as it has to with movement. This led to a
changing in the characteristic of the verb form being static into movement.
Therefore, it clarifies using the verb ‫ ضرب‬in different semantic meaning as in
“beating of the heart”, “rupturing of a vein”, “coining of money”, “setting up a
tent”, and “giving example”.

Hafiz (2004) classifies collocations in his iconic dictionary “Al-Hafiz” into

twelve patterns in which he includes the various combinations of parts of speech:
1. The first pattern is made up of verb + noun where the noun acts as
subject, object or a state. This pattern forms the majority of Arabic
collocations since each verb has its own numerous noun collocates.
e.g. ‫هدأ الموج‬ the waves subsided
‫ضرب الخيمة‬ he pitched his tent
‫استشاط غضبا‬ he was flamed with rage
2. The second pattern consists of verb + prepositional noun phrase, where
the noun is indirect object.
e.g. ‫بيت له امرا‬
‫استقال من العمل‬ to resign his job
3. The third pattern is composed of verb + prepositional noun phrase
where the phrase acts as adverb.
e.g. ‫ضرب بشدة‬
‫ نفذ بدقة‬he precisely implemented
4. The fourth pattern consists of verb + noun phrase. In this pattern, the
noun is in the form of adverbial condition.
e.g. ‫اتصل هاتفيا‬ he made a telephone call
‫خاطب كتابيا‬
5. The fifth pattern is made up of verb + conjunction. The verb in this
pattern most probably is a synonym.
e.g. ‫ طارق و حلق‬he flew and soared
‫هاج وماج‬
6. The sixth pattern is made up of noun + noun, in contrast condition ‫اضافة‬.
e.g. ‫ مسرح االحداث‬the theatre of events
 ‫انتفاضة شعب‬
7. The seventh pattern is noun + conjunction + noun.
e.g. ‫تنظيف وترتيب‬
‫ عزم وإصرار‬intention and insistence
8. The eight pattern is made up of noun + adjective.
e.g. ‫جمال آخذ‬
‫ قوة عظمى‬a supreme power
9. The ninth pattern of Arabic collocations consists of noun +
prepositional noun phrase.
e.g. ‫حفنه من المال‬
‫ غاية في االدب‬extremely polite
10.The tenth pattern is composed of noun + preposition.
e.g. ‫ مقارنة ب‬in comparison with
‫قياسا ب‬
‫استكماال ل‬
11.The eleventh pattern consists of adjective + noun.
e.g. ‫جميل المحيا‬
‫ حسن الخلق‬having big morals
‫كبير القلب‬
12.The last pattern of Arabic collocations is made up of adjective +
adverbial phrase in which the adverbial phrase consists of preposition
+ noun.
e.g. ‫ مستنكر بشدة‬strongly condemns
‫العجيب في االمر‬
 3.4. lexicography of Arabic Collocation
3.4.1. Classical Lexicographers
As previously mentioned that Arabic is lexically a very rich language in
general, and when it comes to collocations, the language is peculiarly affluent.
Thus, early lexicographers realized the importance of compiling books regarding
the phenomenon of “collocation”. Early lexicographers include Al-Iskafi’s
(1906) “the principles of language” “‫ ”مبادئ اللغة‬Mabaade? Al-lugha, Ibn-
Qutaybyah’s (1963) “The writer’s Literature”"‫? "أدب الكاتب‬adab Al-Kaateb, Al-
Tha‫؟‬alabi’s (1986) Philology “‫ ”فقه اللغة‬Fiqh Al-Lugha” and Ibn-Sidha’s (1996)
“The specialized or categorized” “‫ ”المخصص‬Al-Muxasas provide plenty of
collocational material in Arabic. However, the abovementioned books have
shared a common ground in that all are Arabic books and not dictionary. Also,
the arrangement of these works was based on meaning rather than alphabetical
order as it is the case of dictionaries. The purpose of the lexicographer of that
time is to document the richness of the Arabic language. Haywood (1965a: 2 cited
in Brashi 2005: 45) acknowledges that the purpose of the Arabic lexicographer
as:
“it is a remarkable fact that, almost from the start, the compliers of Arabic dictionaries aimed at
registering the complete vocabulary material of the language. Indeed, they were obsessed by the copiousness of
the language. In this, they differed from earlier lexicographers of other nations, whose chief aim was to explain
rare and difficult words”

Al-Iskafi’s (1906) “principles of language” Fiqh Al-Lugha is the oldest

work of all is divided into thirty chapters in which he subcategorizes the content
into different subjects. The dictionary is arranged in somehow logical order in
which he tackles the stars, constellation, time, night and day in the beginning.
Then, he enumerates different sections related to clothes, implements, foods,
drink and even weapons. The next section of the book lists a huge number of
words related to horses, camels, lions and other animals, birds, agriculture
implements, trees, plants, trade, etc. while the last part of the books is devoted to
a few number of words on poetry and their paraphrases.

Ibn-Qutaybayha’s (1963) “The Writer’s Literature” Adabu Al-Kaatib is

divided into three sections in which he provides advice for writers on how to
tackle certain issues on writing such as lexical differences, morphological
derivatives and semantic nuances. The noticeable remark about the book is that,
it is not arranged alphabetically and the presentation of the contents seemed to be
scattered objects.

Al-Thaalibi’s (1986) “philology” Fiqh Al-Lugha is composed of two

significant parts. The first part lists thirty sub-classes made of 600 small chapters.
While the second part is made up of 99 chapters. The arrangement of the whole
chapters in the book is ordered logically. The book provides a wide range of
various topics on aspects of the language such as morphology, lexical, etc. also,
the book addresses descriptions of physical and abstract issues include
mountains, portraits of women, houses, camels, food, sand, dust, to name but a
few.

Ibn Sidha’s (1996) “specialized” Al-Muxasas was classified according to

Ibn Sidha’s own logical system. The book was arranged by subject headings. It
begins with mankind and things related them such as clothes, food, sleep,
weapons. Then the book moved to animals and plants, man in social life in which
he includes work, travel and play. The last section of the book is devoted to a
thorough explanation of syntax, morphology and other linguistics topics.
 3.4.2. Contemporary Lexicographers
Notoriously speaking, dictionaries play a pivotal role in language learning
process and in translation process as well. Therefore, bilingual dictionary now is
an inevitable need for translators and language learners. Nofal (2012: 75 cited in
Galal 2015: 22) elucidates that “translators’ failure to call up collocation
counterparts in target language partly to lack of collocation dictionaries, a
problem which leads them to strategies such as reduction, synonymy,
compensation, paraphrase and transfer”.

Due to the importance of bilingual dictionaries of collocation in Arabic that

help either translators or language learners in order to encounter the problems
they face. Only recently two Arabic bilingual dictionaries of collocations namely;
Al-Hafiz Arabic collocation dictionary (Arabic – English) 2004 by Dr. Al-Tahir
and Dar El-Ilm’s Dictionary of collocations (English – Arabic) 2007 by
Professor Hasan Ghazala. The benefits resulting from compiling such huge
dictionaries are laudable.

3.4.2.1. Ghazala’s Dar Al-Ilm Dictionary of Collocations (2007)

The first dictionary to be discussed is Dar El-Ilm (2007) by Professor
Hasan Ghazala. Dar El-Ilm dictionary is an English- Arabic dictionary. The main
purpose of compiling this dictionary according Ghazala in the introduction of the
book is to address the poor performance of language learners/ users in connection
with collocations. Ghazala relied on different well known English sources in his
way of compiling the dictionary namely; the BBI Combinatory Dictionary of
English (Benson et al 1986), the LTP Dictionary of selected collocations (Hill et
al 1997) and other monolingual sources.

The dictionary enumerates over 12.000 entries with (120.000) English

collocations which translated into over 150.000 Arabic equivalents collocations.
The dictionary includes a wide range of various collocational texts such as:
general, legal, political, journalistic, administrative, abstract, literary, non-
literary, scientific/ technical, medical, advertising, to name but a few.
Additionally, the dictionary covers several types of Arabic collocations as; verb-
noun collocations, adjective-noun collocations, noun-verb collocations and other
miscellaneous collocations.

One of Ghazala’s main reasons for embarking on Dar El-Ilm dictionary

was to improve language learners’ knowledge pf collocations in terms of how to
match words correctly. Therefore, Ghazala provides examples of what he calls
“ordinary collocations” or mis-collocated words and asserts their appropriate
Arabic collocations instead.

figure (1) shows the entry of Ghazala’s dictionary of collocations of letter (a) and it Arabic collocations.
 3.4.2.2. Al-Hafiz’s Arabic Collocations (2004)
The second dictionary of recent Arabic dictionaries be dealt with is Al-
Hafiz (2004) by Dr. Tahir A. Hafiz. The dictionary is intended for Arabic learners
of English and vice versa. The dictionary includes Arabic collocations of different
parts of speech. The lexicographer excludes open collocations in his dictionary
and includes three types only namely; restricted collocations, bound and idioms.
The reason for his choice of the three types and excluding free collocations is that
free combinations are easily and freely to combine. For instance, beautiful house
‫ بيت جميل‬bait jameel can collocate with a wide range of words freely.

The lexicographer listed the entries to be the first letter of the first word in
the combination. For instance, ‫ بيت القصيد‬must be entered under the letter section
of ‫ ب‬in alphabetical order with the other items regardless of whether the first word
is the collocator or the core word. Hafiz (2004) claims that in Arabic-English
dictionaries, a collocation should be entered under the core word. Nevertheless,
for reasons related to time consuming and speed, he argues that the entered
collocation should be included both under the core word alphabetically in one
entry and under its other collocate(s) in a separate entry. For example, (the verb-
noun) collocation ‫ اشتدت الحرب‬can be found under the of (‫ )أ‬in the verb ‫ اشتد‬as well
as in the entry of the letter (‫ )ح‬as in the noun (‫)حرب‬. The dictionary includes 7756
collocations in general. Each entry is headed by the letter it represents. The
collocations are illustrated by using the core word and the collocate, then it
follows by an explanation of the meaning of each one with examples.
figure (2) shows the layout of Hafiz’s dictionary and how the node and the collocates are represented in the
dictionary in addition to the meaning and examples.

3.5. Arabic collocations in computational linguistics

Due to the importance of collocations in Arabic language compiling Arabic
corpora became a necessity in recent studies. Notwithstanding that Arabic has a
huge number of electronic Arabic text corpora, these corpora are raw i.e., means
that the exploration of these corpora still problematic (Ditter & Moussa 1995:
123, cited in Brashi 2005: 50).

According to Van Mol (2000), the reason behind this complexity of Arabic
corpora is due to three main aspects. In the first place, Arabic language is very
polysemic by which he means that creating new words in Arabic is most probably
done through expanding the older meaning of an existing word to a new one. In
this process, the external morphological pattern of the word still the same despite
the fact that it carries a new meaning. He gives an example of the word ‫مضخة‬
madaxa in Arabic has two meanings either to pump or bicycle pump. The aspects
of polysemic in Arabic language hinders the ability of tagging the words as a unit
of the language.
 The second reason for the complexity of Arabic corpora is that Arabic is
usually not vocalized (i.e. written without short vowel strokes), by which the
ambiguity of the words is more obvious in comparing with other languages, e.g.
English and Dutch. For instance, he provides an example of the word “ktb” in
which he claims that in its raw form, can belong to various grammatical
categories. The string of its characters can stand for the verb “kataba” (to write)
and the plural form of the word kutub (books). Another clear-cut example was
provided by Hasnah & Evans (2005: 5, cited in Brashi 2005: 50), the word ‫علم‬
‫؟‬alam has many different pronunciation. This leads to complicate the process of
searching for words in Arabic corpus of texts.

Finally, Van Mol (2000) asserts that what makes Arabic corpora
complexity is due to the prefixes and suffixes that are attached directly to words.
A matter that makes searching by computer for worse. For example, the string of
word (fhm) which consists of three letters can stand for the verb (fahima) (to
mean). Also, it can stand for the particle and suffix (fahum) (and they) or for the
particle and the verb fahamma (and they began). The point is that in order to
search for one word in the computer based on the string of words, one may find
a number of unnecessary words.

Hasbah et al (2014) present ar Ten Ten; a web Arabic corpus began in

2012. The Arabic corpus website comprises 5.8 billion words. An abundance of
it has been lemmatized and part of speech tagged with the MADA tool. All of the
words has been loaded into Sketch Engine, which is a leading corpus query tool.
Sketch Engine is one page automatic corpus derived summaries of a word’s
grammatical and collocational behavior. It provides large collections of MSA
texts includes: the corpus of the contemporary Arabic, international corpus of
Arabic and Leipzing university Arabic collocation.
 Ar Ten Ten contain concordance query that shows the word as it is used in
various texts. For instance, a simple search query for a word such as ‫مزرعة‬,
mazra‫؟‬a (farm). The search is done by lemma as well as the string (‫ )المزرعة‬the
farm al-mazar‫؟‬a.

figure (3) represents the Sketch Engine concordance program and the collocation of the word farm in Arabic.

Sketch engine information is very beneficial for lexicographers as it

presents collocations, idioms, prepositions commonly occurred with verbs and so
forth. Additionally, it helps the lexicographers in finding definitions for new
word. For instance, the word ‫ توحدي‬tawahudy (autistic) in the immediate context
of child and patient refers to that word could be used for an ailment. The program
would be of great help in the field of linguistics; namely corpus linguistics. The
preliminary experiments of the program showed accuracy of three texts of
Modern Standard Arabic, Egyptian Arabic and classical Arabic by 93%.
figure (5) shows the collocation of the word autistic in Arabic with the word child.