A Corpus-based Analysis of Collocational Patterns: Taking Want [NP V-ing] for Example

Based on idiomatic principle put forward by Sinclair, this study adopts a corpus-drivenapproach to analyze and explore the collocational pattern want [NP V-ing] from the phraseological level. Results suggest that want [NP V-ing], which has received relatively little attention, is becoming increasingly important in spoken English. It tends to collocate with negatives such as "not" and colligates with modal auxiliaries, having a negative semantic prosody since it always has words like "bad idea, difficult, freak, revenge" around which can give pragmatic function of warning and request at the same time.