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PART I INTRODUCTION RATIONALE We chose to write the graduation thesis about this topic “An Investigation into Verb and Preposition Collocations” for the following reasons Firstly, the problem for learners of English is that there are no collocation rules that can be learned Native English speakers intuitively make the correct collocation, based on a lifetime, experience of hearing and reading the words in the set of combinations Therefore, we want to concentrate in this thesis on the problem which non-native speakers may have with English vocabulary use in particular with the appropriate combination of words Secondly, non-native speakers have limited experience of hearing very often in a daily life like native English speakers Then, they may frequently collocate words in a way that sounds odd to native English speakers When talking to foreigners, non-native speakers always use a single verb to talk Therefore, it is very hard for the hearer to understand what he/she said and it sounds unnatural in the conversation as well Lastly, this is an interesting topic To communicate effectively with foreigners, non-native speakers should use the correct combination of words to be clearly understood for each other Therefore, Verb and Preposition Collocations will make learners of English interested in studying and using them perfectly in a conversation We hope that we can contribute the small paper to learners of English who are interested in Verb and Preposition Collocations AIMS OF THE STUDY The first aim of the study is to make English learner’s language natural and more easily understand The second is to help the English learner have the alternative and richer way of expression The third aim is to help the English learner’s brain easily remember and use language in chunks and blocks rather than as single words The last aim is to classify verbs and prepositions into the appropriate groups for the English learner to use it as the study document SCOPE OF THE STUDY a The Verbs followed by the Preposition “Of” b The Verbs followed by the Preposition “To” c The Verbs followed by the Preposition “For” d The Verbs followed by the Preposition “From” e The Verbs followed by the Preposition “With” f The Verbs followed by the Preposition “At” g The Verbs followed by the Preposition “In” h The Verbs followed by the Preposition “On” i The Verbs followed by the Preposition “About” METHODS OF THE STUDY The study uses several methods to collect, analyze, and synthesize data, including statistic, analytic, qualitative, and quantitative methods DESIGN OF THE STUDY PART I INTRODUCTION Rationale Aims of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study Design of the study PART II DEVELOPMENT Chapter Theoretical background Chapter The investigation into verb and preposition collocations Chapter Some suggested activities for learning verb and preposition collocations PART III CONCLUSION REFERENCES APPENDIX PART CHAPTER II DEVELOPMENT THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 WHAT IS VERB? 1.1.1 THE DEFINATION OF VERB (Strumpf and Auriel (1999) define verbs as words that express action, existence, or condition Verbs are the life of language Because of them, our words take action and we are able to express who we are and how we feel Without verbs, speech and writing would be reduced to trivial naming and static description Some verbs express action: We danced until three in the morning The rock band appreciated its unshakable sense of time Other verbs indicate a condition or a state Bobby is miserable after losing his dog This new car looks beautiful Still others speak of existence of some persons or things Some of the buried workers are still alive This old car is on its last legs Verbs are words that show action or being Whatever you are doing can be expressed by a verb A sentence can have one word as long as that word is a verb; play, stop, run… etc The verb is the heart of the predicate and usually the most important part of the sentence A verb or compound verb asserts something about the subject of the sentence and expresses actions, events, or state of being (GUCKER, 1966) 1.1.2 TYPES OF VERB (Randolph and Sidney, 1982) In any language, the topic of verb is large, and rather complicated This chapter deals with two general types of English verbs and how to classify them There are various ways to classify verbs in this chapter We begin with a classification relating to the function of items in the verb phrase There are two classes of verbs in English: The auxiliary verbs: these verbs include to be, to have, to do, can, could, may, might, must, ought, shall, should, will, would, to need, to dare and used to In linguistics, an auxiliary (also called helping verb, helper verb, auxiliary verb, or verbal auxiliary) is a verb whose function is to give further semantic or syntactic information about the main or full verb following it In English, the extra meaning an auxiliary verb imparts alters the basic from of the main verb to have one or more of the following function s: passive, progressive, perfect and modal In English, every clause has a finite verb that consists of a full verb (a non-auxiliary verb) and optionally one or more auxiliary verbs, each of which is a separate word Examples of finite verbs include write (no auxiliary verb), have written (one auxiliary verb), and have been written (two auxiliary verbs) Many languages, including English, feature of verbs that can act either as auxiliary or as full verbs such as be (“I am writing a letter” vs “I am a postman”) and have (“I have written a letter” vs “I have a letter”) In the case of be, it is sometimes ambiguous whether it is auxiliary or not For example, “The ice cream was melted” could mean either “something melted the ice cream” (in which case melt would be the main verb) or “ the ice cream was mostly liquid” (in which case be would be the main verb) The primary auxiliary verbs in English are to be and to have, other major ones include shall, will, may, can and so on There are ten modal verbs: can, could, may, might, ought, shall, should, will, would, and must They differ from the other auxiliaries, that is to say they are detective verbs and they can never function as main verbs In general, modal verbs express an assessment of possibility or responsibility Some of them can be viewed representation of a conditional tense form in English as Ordinary verbs: A verb says what a person or thing does and can describe It can occur in different forms according to their tenses and the number and person of the subject Ordinary verbs can be divided into two general groups: 2.1 The action verb: transitive and intransitive 2.1.1 Transitive verbs: A transitive verb expresses an action and is followed by an object that receives the action of the verb In the following example, transitive verbs are shown in the bold front and direct object of the verb is underlined I washed the car yesterday I took my sister to the movie John studies English 2.1.2 Intransitive verbs: An intransitive verb expresses an action but is not followed by an object Applying test to an intransitive verb shows immediately that an object cannot follow Tom’s grades improved with the help of a tutor The child cried loudly The mother sang to her children 2.2 Linking verbs: linking verbs not show action A linking verb [also called copulative verb] links or establishes a relationship between the subject and its complement It describes or renames the subject She is angry The word is [a form of the verb to be] links the subject she to the subject complement angry 2.2.1 Linking verb followed by predicate noun: My friend is a teacher Mike became a president of the company 2.2.2 Linking verb followed by predicate adjective: I feel nervous That pie tastes delicious List of common linking verbs: appear, become, feel, get, go, grow, look, prove, remain, seem, smell, sound, taste, turn and any form of the verb to be See the verb “To Be” below Only become and seem are always linking verbs Other verbs from the list above sometimes can function as action verbs In the following example, verbs feel and taste are functioning as action verbs I feel pain from the injury Taste the pie and tell me if you like it To determine whether a verb is a linking verb substituted am, is or are for the verb If it fits-the substitute verb is a linking verb In the following examples, verb feel is substituted with am I feel I am nervous * Makes sense so feel is linking verb I feel pain from the injury nervous I am pain from the injury * In this case, it does not make sense so feel is action verb 1.1.3 CHARACTERISTICS OF VERBS Verbs are associated with five primary characteristics: number, person, voice, mood, and tense These determine what form a verb takes and how it is use din the sentences (Strumpf and Auriel, 1999) Number The number of the verb indicates how many people, creatures, or things a verb refer to Number comes in just two flavors: singular and plural A singular refers to only one person or thing, while a plural verb may refer to many SINGULAR PLURAL He runs They run She is They are swimming swimming We win I win Person We use the category of person to describe the perspective from which the speaker makes his or her statements or observations Is he or she the person or speaking or spoken to, or he or she the person or object speaking or spoken of? There are three different persons or perspectives that the verb can take: first person, second person, and third person * First person In the first person, the speaker includes himself or herself as one who takes the action or whose condition is described This person is appropriate to situations where the speaker wants to describe what he or she is doing, seeing, or feeling The first person employs the pronouns I and we, and the first person verbs take the forms appropriate to these pronouns I laugh at danger We were not pleased * Second person In the second person, the speaker addresses the person or people around him or her This category of person employs the pronoun you, (you, the individual) and the plural form (you, a group) Again, the second person verbs must take forms appropriate to these pronouns You are not going to be happy when your father gets home All of you drove here from Phoenix in that tiny car * Third person To speaker in the third person is to speak or write about those around you The third person perspective might be that of a normal human observing his or her environment The third person employs the pronoun he, she, it, and they or any third person noun The third person verbs must take forms appropriate to these pronouns or nouns She thinks of him fondly They caught the last train to Clarksville My old car may be ugly, but it runs well Voice The voice of a verb indicates the strength of the subject in a sentence It tells us whether that subject takes action or receives action There are two possible voices: active and passive In the active voice, the stronger form, the subject of the sentence takes the action of the verb Our army won the battle The subject army is strong since it takes action This sentence uses the active voice In the passive voice, the weaker form, the subject is acted upon The battle was won by our army 10 Example: He accounted for such problems She asked for help They begged for the answer to the riddle He blamed his employees for his mistakes I apologized to her for being rude The police arrested the man for stealing the car 2.3.4 The Verbs follow by the Preposition “From” Benefit from something Exclude Borrow something from someone/something from someone something Deter someone from Expel someone from [doing] something something Derive something from Graduate from somewhere something Hear from someone Discourage someone from Hind something from something someone Differ from Hinder someone/something someone/something from something Distinguish something from Prohibit someone from something [doing] something Distract someone from Prevent someone from something [doing] something Emerge from something Protect someone from Escape from something someone/something Recover from something Rescue someone from something Resign from something Stop someone from [doing] Save someone from something something Subtract something from Separate something from something else something else Suffer from something Stem from something Example: He borrowed money from me The school prohibits students from smoking He derives a great deal of pleasure from his work Your results differ little from mine They escaped from jail 2.3.5 The Verbs follow by the Preposition “With” Agree with someone Correspond with someone Argue with someone Confuse something with Begin with something something Charge someone with Cover someone/something something with something else Collide with Disagree with someone/something someone/something Compare something with Discuss something with something someone Communicate with Face with something someone Fight with someone Compete with someone Help someone with Cope with something someone/something Interfere with Present someone with someone/something something Meet with someone Speak with someone Meet with something Talk with someone Example: I agree with you Timmy argued with his father about his curfew Every sentence begins with a capital letter I correspond with them by email The car collided with a truck 2.3.6 The Verbs follow by the Preposition “At” Aim something at Look at someone/something someone/something Point something at Arrive at [a building, room, someone/something events] Smile at someone Guess at something Stare at Glare at someone/something someone/something Shout at someone/ Laugh at something someone/something Throw something at Wonder at something someone Example: They arrived at home She glared at him in disbelief We always laugh at his jokes The old man shouted at the kids I smiled at the newcomers 2.3.7 The Verbs follow by the Preposition “In” Absorb something in Involve someone/something something in [doing] something Arrive in [a city, country] Participate in something Believe in something Persist in [doing] something Interfere in something Succeed in [doing] Invest in something something Specialize in something Example: He believes in ghosts We invested in that company We participated in the survey He specializes in technical translation He succeeded in finishing the marathon 2.3.8 The Verbs follow by the Preposition “On” Agree on something Blame something on Base something on someone something Count on Depend on someone/something someone/something Comment on something Experiment on something Compliment someone on Insist on [doing] something something Impress something on Concentrate on [doing] someone something Operate on Congratulate+ someone on someone/something [doing] something Rely on someone/something Decide on something Work on something Example: The company bases salary on experience He blamed the company's failure on his employees She would not comment on the accusations He decided on taking the job in Los Angeles He elaborated on his earlier comments 2.3.9 The Verbs follow by the Preposition “About ” Argue about something Forget about something Ask someone about Grumble about something someone/something Hear about something Boast about something Joke [with someone] about Care about something someone/something Know about something Complain to someone about Learn about something something Talk about something Dream about Quarrel about something someone/something Discuss about something Example: She boasted about her new Mercedes He cares about what his children watch on TV They complained about the quality of the hotel The old man always grumbles at his wife about their children never visiting They quarreled with the waiter about the mistakes on the bill CHAPTER SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES TO IMPROVE LEARNING VERB AND PREPOSITION COLLOCATIONS The aim of the study is to help Thai learners of English understand more and clearly about the use of verb and preposition collocations in order that their English will be better Another aim is to find an effective way to improve learning verb and preposition collocations That is why, we suggest some techniques to help the learner of English follow them and we have some exercises to practice as well 3.1 THE TECHNIQUES OF LEARNING VERB AND PREPOSITION COLLOCATIONS The learner of English always have the difficulties in studying verb and preposition collocations, so they should find an interesting way to help themselves understand how the verb and preposition collocations are used in both writing and speaking There are many ways to develop learning this issue effectively The first thing is that the learner should be aware of placing the prepositions after the certain verbs and try to recognize them when you see or hear them The second way is when you learn verb and preposition collocations, you should add someone and something to them so as to easily understand how to use them correctly For example: Accuse someone of something Blame someone for doing something Prevent someone from doing something The third way is to read as much as possible, because reading is an excellent way to learn vocabulary and verb and preposition collocations in context and naturally The forth way is to revise what you learn regularly Practice using new verb and preposition collocations as much as possible After learning them, you can write them in a sentence so that you can remember in long term because of having read and written them For example: I wait for them at the restaurant They are searching for signs of life on Mars He disagreed with me The forth way is to learn the collocations in group that work for you You could learn them by a topic such as “ of, at, on, in, about, for, from, with, and to” or by an initial of the word like the words that begin with A, B, C and so on Finally, you can find information on verb and preposition collocations in any good dictionary and you can also find specialized dictionaries of a set of verb and preposition combinations 3.2 THE TECHNIQUES OF TEACHING VERB AND PREPSITION COLLOCATIONS To help students successfully study verb and preposition collocations, the teacher needs effective techniques There are a lot of techniques to improve the students’ language, but in this thesis we give only some techniques as follows: 1.Teaching the students giving the structure of verb and preposition collocations because they may not know the use of them clearly For example: Forgive somebody for doing something Congratulate someone on doing something Punish someone for doing something These will help the students understand more about how to use them After giving them the structure , the teacher should give the students so many exercises in order that they can see the words in the several different sentences and then they will be familiar with those words and this is the best way for the language teacher to help their students learn verb and preposition effectively The exercise would be a filling gap with appropriate preposition as in the following example For example: He needs to concentrate……… his work She forgot……… the meeting What happened……….him? Have you heard…………your son recently? He voted…………the most popular candidate 3.3 SOME SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES FOR LEARNING VERB AND PREPOSITION COLLOCATIONS Exercise Fill each blank with ONE suitable preposition at for Her from employer with to accused of in on about her…………… stealing the money Rose blamed her parents …………….not bringing her up properly His mother punished him…………… being rude to their neighbor The lock prevents burglars…………… breaking into their house The Jury convict him…………… murdering his wife The shopkeeper forgave the child…………… stealing the sweet His son was arrested……………selling drugs to teenagers Her nephew was discouraged……………talking with the police The judge congratulated the police………… catching the gang 10 She warned the children……………playing in the park after dark Exercise Roberta is thinking……….to the concert A about going B about go C to go Peggy does not feel……….the customers today A like helping B to help C like help Dania is interested……….her family A in visiting B to visit C for visit Has Jim complained……… to get to work so early A about having B about have C about to have We succeeded……….the project by the deadline A in finishing B to finish C on finish Todd and Lori are committed……….their children as vegetarians A to raising B to raise C on raising The agent is looking forward……….his new clients A to meeting B on meeting C for meeting PART III CONCLUSION Based on the result of the study, we have come to some conclusions Verb and preposition collocations are very interesting and they have been paid much attention by the learners of English They are rather difficult to study and use perfectly They are very useful for the learners of English because they can be clearly understood when they come together in a sentence Through this study, we can see the several different definitions of verb and preposition according to some dictionaries, types, function and some important thing of these two topics Moreover, we also discuss about collocations; definitions, types and aspect of its REFERENCE Gucker Philip (1966) Essential English Grammar New York: Dover Publication INC Health Language, Retrieved October lnc (1997) Sample Collocations 20th, 2009, from http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/ collocations-samples.htm Heather Marie Kosur (2009, October 15th) The Nominal Functions of Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases Retrieved October November 5,2009, from http://www.brighthub.com/education/ languages/articles/46995.aspx#ixzz0WpELWXbY Kenneth Beare (1997) Collocation Retrieved 20 th, 2009, from http://esl.about.com/od/engilshvocabulary/a/colloca tions.htm Kraikung and Kannika Anukmakun (1999) Comprehensive English for Entrance Thailand: Phumbundit Quirk Randolph and Greenbaum Sidney (1982) A University Grammar of English Hong Kong: Longman Steel Miranda (2000) Oxford Word Power Dictionary Thailand: Window on the world Strumpf Michael and Douglas Auriel (1999) The Grammar Bible Canada: H.B Fenn and company Ltd Thomson A.J and Martinet A.V (Ed.) (1986) A Practice English Grammar.Hong Kong: Oxford University Press Viroj Panichakit (1999) English Usage Thailand: MAC Press.co.Ltd APPENDIX THE KEY TO EXERCISES Exercise 1 Accuse someone of something Blame someone for doing something Punish someone for something Prevent someone from doing something convict someone of doing something Forgive someone for doing something Arrest someone for doing something Discourage someone from doing something Congratulate someone on doing something 10 Warn someone about doing something Exercise about going like helping in visiting about having in finishing to raising to meeting