Abstract：Abstract: Shell nouns are widely used in academic discourse. Previous studies have tended to account for the set of patterns proposed by Schmid (2000), with scant attention given to the lexical verbs that collocate with the shell nouns. This study statistically examined the “lexical-verb+shell-noun” collocations in 497 English academic papers with cluster analysis and multiple distinctive collexeme analysis, and explored the collocation mechanism with the Event-Domain Cognitive Model. The different “lexical-verb+shell-noun” collocation tendencies found as the result of the investigation indicates that the semantic association between lexical-verbs and shell nouns reflects the basic cognitive mechanisms in the event domain of scientific research. The research findings can provide implications for the teaching of academic English.
Key words: shell noun; lexical verb; collocation; Event-Domain Cognitive Model
