“What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Collocation in Spanish?”

The aim of this paper is to offer an overview of the concept of collocation as it is seen in Spanish linguistics. Several perspectives are critically examined, among which those of E. Coseriu (1967) –for its influence on most of the subsequent linguists for his ‘lexical solidarities’–, Corpas Pastor (1996) –whose Manual is considered a key text on this topic–, and Koike (2001), the author of the most complete corpus-based classification of collocations in Spanish. Besides, a point is made about light verb constructions and other types of combinations. The basic definition of collocation in Spanish has to do with the idea of inner fixity and repetition (Zuluaga 2002); on the other hand, there are restrictions in word combinations and it can be argued that this is the foundation of most definitions of what is called collocation in Spanish linguistics. Under this point of view, Bosque’s dictionary (2004) could be regarded as a ‘dictionary of collocations’, even though he says it is not, and we believe this is coherent with his own criterias of what a collocation should be. Moreover, it is usually pointed out that collocations’ meaning is clear and in no case idiomatic, but this is not always true; furthermore, collocations have semantic peculiarities, such as metaphorical dimensions (and cognitivism can say much about it) or connotations (sociolinguistic varieties), as many studies point out. In conclusion, collocation is a heterogeneous category; its boundaries, on one side close to certain types of fixed expressions (called ‘locuciones’ in Spanish) and on the other quite similar to linguistical formulations that are considered free combinations (i.e., without fixity), are not clear-cut and definite ones.