1. A Contrastive Analysis of Verb-noun Collocations and their Syntactic Patterns in Academic English and Arabic Writing
Manal Alangari
University of Reading
Supervised by
Dr. Sylvia Jaworska
Dr. Jacqueline Laws

2. Interest
To help advanced Arab learners of English who need to write academic English.
Identify similarities and differences in verb-noun collocations and verb complementation construction types between the two languages.
Identify areas of positive or negative transfer from Arabic into the production of verb-noun collocations and verb complementation constructions by Arabic-speaking learners of English.

3. Why Verb-noun Collocations?
Research on Arab EFL learners’ writing attributes learners’ writing problem primarily to lexical choices and Arabic discourse transfer
(Al-Khuweileh & Al-Shoumali, 2000; Al-Hazmi & Schofield, 2007; El-Sadiq,2010)
Previous research has revealed verb-noun collocations to be more error-prone than other types of collocations, such as adjective-noun collocations, for learners, especially Arabic-speaking learners.
( Nesselhauf, 2005; Alangari, 2015)
One-word verb
Multi-word verbs
What ever comes after the verb

4. Research On Verb Complementation Structures In Arabic
focus on theoretical analysis of Arabic verb complementation structures.
(Salih, 1985; Alrashed, 2012)
focus on one structure, such as verbless sentences
(Albalushi, 2012)
focus on lists of verbs taken from dictionaries.
(Warwick, 2016)
Little empirical and quantitative evidence based on authentic actual written data for structural and lexical differences and similarities in the use of verb complementation patterns, collocations in particular.
Argument structure in Arabic has received little attention.
Less attention has been given to a comparison with English Argument structure.

5. Construction Grammar (Goldberg,1995-2006; Hilpert,2014)
It does not assume any strict division between the lexicon and syntax.
Constructions are form-meaning pairing patterns (Goldberg, 1995:4)
Constructions refer to any linguistic pattern that has some aspect of its form or function not strictly predictable from its component parts or from other constructions recognized to exist (Goldberg, 1995:4).
It also includes patterns that occur with sufficient frequency (Goldberg , 2006).
Constructions as the basic units of language (Goldberg, 1995:4)
Motivated by idiomatic expressions and unusual phrasal patterns
simple sentences are equally important
They are seen as examples of a special kind of construction,

6. Construction Grammar and Argument Structure
Argument structure most extensively explored
Valency constructions (Hilpert, 2014)
Argument structure can be understood semantically and syntactically:
Semantic description: thematic roles,
e.g., agent, patient, theme, etc.
Syntactic description: grammatical roles,
e.g., subject, direct object, etc.
Argument structure is one of the most extensively explored constructions.
The main verb can combine with a wide range of complement configurations referred to as argument structures or valency constructions (Hilpert, 2014)
Argument structure can be understood semantically and syntactically:
Semantic description is related to the thematic roles of the verb and its valencies such as agent, patient, theme, instrument, location, etc_ the list is open ended.
Syntactic description relates to the syntactic argument structure such as subject, direct object, etc.

7. Research Questions
RQ1. Which constructions are frequently used in academic writing in both languages?
RQ2. What are the most frequent phrasal and prepositional verbs used in academic writing in both languages?
RQ3. what are the similarities and the differences between the semantics of the verbs used in each construction in both languages?

8. Methodology
Corpora 1- Academic English Corpus (AEC): articles from 9 journals ( ) Total size: 1,204,791 tokens, 987,387 words 2- Academic Arabic Corpus (AAC): Total size: 1,154,020 tokens, 986,762 words Procedures Corpus-based analysis 100 Most frequent verbs in each corpus and their complements.

9. The Constructions To Be Investigated
1- Intransitive
Such people still exist
2- Simple transitive
Bill ate the apple
3- Double Object (Dative and Benefactive constructions)
He lent Sam his bike
4- Copular/linking
She is a teacher
5- Complex copular
He considered his uncle a genius
6- Complex transitive
She put her coat in the hall
Multi-word verbs constructions
7- Prepositional type 1
John looked at his watch
8- Prepositional type 2
He lent his bike to Sam
9- Prepositional type 3
I caught sight of him
10- Prepositional type 4
They told me about your success
11- Phrasal type 1
The plane took off
12- Phrasal type 2
Sam picked up the pen
13- Phrasal Prepositional Type 1
I look forward to your party
14- Phrasal Prepositional Type 2
They put it down to chance
15- Phrasal Prepositional Type 3
They let me in on the deal

10. Findings
Normalised frequency of the 100 verbs in the selected constructions in AEC
Normalised frequency of the 100 verbs in the selected constructions in AAC

11. Prepositional type 1 exists in Arabic but is not recognized in Arabic grammar books.
Arabic prepositional type 1
Frequency of occurrence with prep
Total frequency of occurrences of the verb
English prepositional
type 1 1
/ʔʃara/ (point to/ mention) ila (to)
443
460
refer to
561
594 4
/yataʕlaqu/(be attached to) bi (with)
262
309
relate to
127
413 5
/yartabɪtˤu/ (connect) bi (to)
117
228 6
/yuʔdi:/ (lead to) ilɑ (to)
140
286
lead to
283
437 7
/yanðˤuru/ (see/ look) ila (to/at) 65
119
look at
202
360 8
/yadʕu:/ (call) ila (to) 54
114
call for 48
307

12. Phrasal verbs and phrasal prepositional verbs do not exist in Arabic
Phrasal type 1
come out (20 out of 677)
go on (24 out of 501)
move on (22 out of 242)
Phrasal type 2
make something up (21 out of 1000)
find out something (17 out of 974)
set up something (35 out of 281)
Phrasal/prepositional type 1
go along with (5 out of 501)
look forward to (9 out of 360)
move away from (7 out of 242)

13. Intransitive construction in English prefers:
physical behaviour, e.g., move, start, begin, follow, apply,…etc.
communication, e.g., speak, and say (lower frequency)
In Arabic, physical movement and occurrence,
e.g., /dʒaʔa/(come/ to be mentioned), 
/yaqaʕu/(fall/ take place),
/ðahaba/(go),
/taʕmalu/(work/make/do)
Some English verbs occur in many constructions,
e.g., come and go (motion verbs)
Intransitive construction in English prefers verbs that describe
physical behaviour, move, start, begin, follow, apply,…etc. Some verbs of communication, such as: speak, and say were used in this construction too but with low frequency.
In Arabic, a match was found between verbs, mostly verbs related to physical movement and occurrence, such as /dʒaʔa/(come/ to be mentioned), /yaqaʕu/(fall/ take place), /ðahaba/(go), and /taʕmalu/(work/make/do).
It is also noted that some English verbs occur in many constructions, such as make, take, come, go, and get. These verbs have the sense of motion. Such verbs are rarely treated as such in grammar books and materials for learners.

14. Thank you
Manal Alangari

15. References
Alangari, M. (2015). A corpus-based study of lexical collocations in the writing of Arab learners of English. Unpublished Dissertation for Part 1 of the degree of PhD (Taught Track & Thesis) in Applied Linguistics, University of Reading.
Al-balushi, R. (2012). Why vebless sentences in Standard Arabic are verbless. Canadian Journal of Linguistics, 57(1), 1-30.
Al-Hazmi, S. & Scholfield, P. (2007). Enforced revision with checklist and peer feedback in EFL writing: The example of Saudi University Students. Scientific Journal of King Faisal University (Humanities and Management Sciences), 8(2),
Al-Khuweileh, A. & Al-Shoumali, A. (2000). Writing errors: A study of the writing ability of Arab learners of Academic English and Arabic at university. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 13(2),
Alrashed, M. (2012). Argument structure in Arabic: lexicon or syntax? Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University.
El-Sadig, E. (2010). Arab EFL learners’ writing dilemma at tertiary level. English Language Teaching, 3(4),
Goldberg, A. (1995). A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

16. References
Goldberg, A. (2006). Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Greenbaum, S. & Nelson, G. (2002). An introduction to English grammar. 2nd edition. Longman.
Greenbaum, S. & Quirk, R. (1990). A student’s grammar of the English language. Longman.
Hilpert, M. (2014). Construction Grammar and its application to English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Nesselhauf, N. (2005). Collocations in a Learner Corpus. John Benjamins Publishing Company: Amesterdam/Philadelphia.
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. Longman.
Salih, M. (1985). Aspects of clause structure in Standard Arabic: A study in relational grammar. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo.
Warwick, D. (2016). Arabic verb: Form and meaning in the vowel-lengthening patterns. John Benjamins Publishing Company.