Collocation Acquisition Using a Polysemous Verb as a Node

Abstract

This study examines the acquisition of collocations involving the polysemous Japanese verb toru ‘take' by native Chinese and Korean speakers: 1) classifying the cognitive definitions of toru for native Japanese speakers, 2) investigating and analyzing the prototype of toru for learners of the Japanese language, and 3) their comprehension of collocations with toru.

As a result, 1) the systematically organized definitions of the native Japanese speakers for the most part accorded with the those listed in dictionaries, although some differences were seen; 2) a gap was observed between the prototypes of the learners and the native Japanese speakers, and the learners accordingly seemed to construct their own definitions; 3) although the learners acquired a certain amount of the polysemy, the range of words they could use in collocations with the verb was found to be lacking. It was suggested that individual collocations are acquired in the form of points, which the learners have difficulty in expanding to cover the whole plane of possible usage.