When mentioning the methods of recognizing the separable words in Chinese, it relates to two aspects, one of which is the difference between the separable words and phrases while another is recognition of the separable words and the non-separable words in other words. In the book about the recognition and property of the separable words, Zhao Shuhua and Zhang Baolin pointed out the standards to tell apart the separable words and other words. The first one is to tell by finding whether there are bound morphemes in the combination element and those morphemes with bound morphemes all belong to the separable words.
The second standard is the strictly demanded collocation, which is to say, a verbal element can be combined together with one nominal element or one nominal element can collocates with one verbal element. This kind of verbal and nominal combination can be called the separable words. The third standard of judging the separable words that the students who learn Mandarin Chinese need to know is the nominal and verbal combination of non-verb-object compound but seems like this compound can be called as the separable words. In addition, if the words can be expanded and can function as both noun and adjective, they belong to the separable words.
We just mentioned the strictly limited collocation which is to say the combination of one nominal element and one verbal element is separable word, but not phrase. For example, on the basis of the relevant separation of meanings of the verbal elements 毕、叹、聊and起, they can just be combined together with 业、气、天儿and哄respectively. In the same sense, the nominal elements 眠、殃、光and旱can collocate with only the verbal elements 失、遭、沾and抗.
For the third standard we just mentioned, the noun-verb-object compound which looks like so must be the separable words, but not phrases. Foreign students who volunteer in China might have learned the words like 鞠躬、洗澡、游泳、睡觉and 考试. All of those words are not the verb-object type but then used by people as such style. Those separable words of this type are all accepted by the general public. The words can be expanded such as 放心、整齐and签名are also the separable words.