Collocations: Which Verb Goes With Which Noun
Collocations: Which Verb Goes With Which Noun
At this level the grammar is largely settled and the remaining work is collocation: Dutch takes a decision with nemen, asks a question with stellen, and pays attention with besteden. Choose the wrong verb and the sentence is intelligible but visibly foreign.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Light verbs are fixed per noun
een beslissing nemen, een vraag stellen, aandacht besteden aan, een voorstel doen
to take a decision, to ask a question, to pay attention to, to make a proposal
These combinations cannot be reasoned out. Dutch stelt a question rather than asking it, doet a proposal rather than making it, and besteedt attention rather than paying it. Some happen to match English — een beslissing nemen mirrors 'take a decision' — and others do not, so each has to be learned as a pair. This is the densest single source of the residual accent in advanced writing.
Prepositional collocations in formal register
rekening houden met, in aanmerking komen voor, de nadruk leggen op
to take into account, to be eligible for, to emphasize
Formal Dutch is built from multi-word units with a fixed internal preposition: rekening houden met ('take account of'), in aanmerking komen voor ('qualify for'), ter sprake komen ('come up for discussion'), een rol spelen ('play a role'). None of the individual words can be swapped, and because they contain articles and prepositions in fixed positions, they behave like single vocabulary items.
Word order still applies to the whole unit
Ik heb met uw verzoek rekening gehouden.
I have taken your request into account.
A collocation is not immune to Dutch grammar: the verb conjugates and moves to second position, the noun part stays in the middle field, and the participle goes to the end. So rekening houden met splits into rekening ... gehouden with the object between them. Recognizing which words belong to the fixed unit is what lets you place them correctly.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- to make a decision
- English
- to ask a question
- English
- to pay attention to
- English
- to take into account
- English
- to be eligible for
- English
- to emphasize
- English
- to play a role
- English
- to take measures
- English
- to come up (in discussion)
- English
- to make a proposal
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