Collocational restriction is a linguistic term used in morphology. The term refers to the fact that in certain two-word phrases the meaning of an individual word is restricted to that particular phrase (cf. idiom). For instance: the adjective dry can only mean 'not sweet' in combination with the noun wine. Linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and someone who engages in this study is called a linguist. ... Theoretical linguistics studies diverse questions: how certain languages managed to communicate, what properties all languages have in common, what knowledge a person must have to be able to use a language, and language acquisition. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ... Phonology (Greek phonē = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ... Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. ... Syntax, originating from the Greek words συν (syn, meaning co- or together) and τάξις (táxis, meaning sequence, order, arrangement), can in linguistics be described as the study of the rules, or patterned relations that govern the way the words in a sentence come together. ... In the main, semantics (from the Greek and in greek letters σημαντικός or in latin letters semantikós, or significant meaning, derived from sema, sign) is the study of meaning, in some sense of that term. ... Lexical semantics is a field in computer science and linguistics which deals mainly with word meaning. ... The Prototype is what a Stereotype is called in cognitive linguitics. ... Stylistics is the study of style used in literary, and verbal language and the effect the writer/speaker wishes to communicate to the reader/hearer. ... In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules for a language. ... Pragmatics is generally the study of natural language understanding, and specifically the study of how context influences the interpretation of meanings. ... Applied linguistics is concerned with using linguistic theory to address real-world problems. ... Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, and understand language. ... Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. ... Generative linguistics is a school of thought within linguistics that makes use of the concept of a generative grammar. ... In linguistics and cognitive science, cognitive linguistics (CL) refers to the currently dominant school of linguistics that views the important essence of language as innately based in evolutionarily-developed and speciated faculties, and seeks explanations that advance or fit well into the current understandings of the human mind. ... Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical and logical modeling of natural language from a computational perspective. ... Descriptive linguistics is the work of analyzing and describing how language is actually spoken now (or how it was actually spoken in the past), by any group of people. ... Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time. ... Etymology is the study of the origins of words. ... A linguist is a person who studies linguistics. ... Morphology is the following: In linguistics, morphology is the study of the structure of word forms. ... A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together. ... A phrase is a group of words that functions as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. ... An idiom is an expression (ie. ... An adjective is a part of speech which modifies a noun, usually describing it or making its meaning more specific. ... A noun, or noun substantive, is a part of speech (a word or phrase) which can co-occur with (in)definite articles and attributive adjectives, and function as the head of a noun phrase. ...

A more illustrative example is the one given below:

• white wine
• white coffee
• white noise
• white man

All four instances of white can be said to be idiomatic because in combination with certain nouns the meaning of white changes. In none of the examples does white have its usual meaning. Instead, in the examples above it means 'yellowish', 'brownish', 'containing many frequencies with about equal amplitude', and 'pinkish' or 'pale brown', respectively.

Bibliography

• Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2002), An Introduction to English Morphology, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
• Crystal, D. (2003), A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Blackwell, Oxford.