Words in speech are used not in isolation, one at a time, but in combinations. Not all of them are freely connected to each other. The lexical compatibility of words is their ability to connect with a certain circle of other words. Sometimes, due to the complexity of such a choice in speech, lexical errors are allowed .
In a sentence, words are interconnected both in meaning and grammatically. In the latter case, such a relationship provides grammatical correctness of speech. Meaningful connections ensure the correctness of statements in content. Words used in speech should be consistent with others. This is expressed in two types of compatibility - lexical and semantic.
Lexical compatibility refers to the ability of words to combine only with a limited number (or units) of words.
Semantic is expressed in the ability of words to correlate with a whole class of other words that are united by a common meaning. For example, a group of verbs describing the state of a person (think, laugh, etc.) can be combined with all the words that mean people (doctor, passer-by).
In a number of cases, when it is not about specific things, but about their relationships (abstract, abstract vocabulary), then the lexical compatibility is conditional. For example, you can “give advice”, “inspect”, “resist”, etc. All these verbs play one role, they can easily be replaced with synonyms (“advise”, “inspect”, “resist”), but it is almost impossible to mix them up. A Russian-speaking person will never say, for example, "make advice."
Human linguistic consciousness is endowed with selective power. This property has been formed for centuries, in the process of everyday practice. However, to correctly use words in speech, knowledge of their meanings is not enough. When compiling phrases, pay attention to the compatibility of words. One must be careful with synonyms. For example, the adjectives “authentic” and “true” are identical in meaning, but we do not say “true friend” or “true document”, since a friend can be true and documents can be genuine. This is the lexical compatibility.
Examples of such compounds of words are very numerous. Often they can have restrictions on combinations. First of all, they can be simply incompatible in meaning: “land restaurant”, “orange hare”, etc. In addition, inconsistency may be due to their grammatical nature (“beautiful singer”, “my house”) or lexical features (you can “cause grief”, but you can’t say anything about joy; we say “all year round”, but not “all hour” ").
Sometimes impaired lexical compatibility is perceived quite comically (“the recent past”). However, in literary works, violations are used deliberately to achieve certain effects: hit the reader, pay attention to something, amuse, etc. For example, “a merry widow”, “hung with beards”, “forgiveness of other people's virtues”, “the last attack of youth”, etc. In this case, incompatibility should be considered as a stylistic device.
Some variants of improper compatibility are widespread (very often different people use them in speech with the same mistakes): “meeting convened” (needed: “meeting took place”), “developing horizons” (need: “expanding horizons”). This is due to the fact that in one situation different stable phrases can be used, and often the replacement of components leads to semantic inaccuracy. The traditional phrase "Let me raise a toast!" also is incorrect. You can either “raise a glass” or “make a toast”.
Also a typical mistake in which lexical compatibility is violated is the phrase “the level of service has improved”. The level can be increased, but the quality can improve.