Can't I say "alleviate negative impact of something"?
Ugh. Well, I don't have a huge problem with it but I'd prefer a different collocation.
The word
alleviate has the core sense of making something
lighter. This is good for when the idea is that the verb's object has a certain
heaviness. I personally don't think that the conception of an impact as a heaviness is quite right (though it's not very wrong). The core sense of an impact is that something hits something else. When talking about things hitting other things, we tend more often to use the metaphor of hardness (
soften a blow, etc.)
We also tend very commonly to use the idea of the
gradability of impacts. In this way, we can say that something has a
high impact or a
great impact on something. Following this idea, we use collocations like
lessen the impact, minimise the impact, and
reduce the impact.
I don't know if you're aware of
collocation dictionaries. If not, I strongly recommend you start using them. I think you will find them very useful. It's also important to bear in mind the core sense of a word, when learning how to use it effectively.
http://www.freecollocation.com/
