Is 気ばかり only used with 焦る?

Question

I ran into this usage of 気ばかり from Dungeon Meshi Episode 14:

気ばかり焦って
なかなか前に進めないな。

I had never seen 気ばかり before, so I checked one of my dictionaries for 焦る and came across these example sentences:

・気ばかり焦る　be overanxious; be in a state of anxiety 《to do sth》
・気ばかりあせって全然仕事がはかどらない.　
I've been so anxious to get the work finished that it's been going nowhere.

Searching for 気ばかり on Twitter, almost every example includes 焦る.

I wonder the possible reason for this (since there are so many 気 expressions), if other verbs are also used, and if so what specific kinds of verbs are used with 気ばかり?

Answer 1

Here, 気が焦る is a set expression, and ばかり adds the meaning of "only/just". 気ばかり焦って and 気が焦るばかりで are interchangeable.

Other common set phrases, such as 気がつく, 気が散る and 気がする, tend to take ばかり/だけ after the verb part:

• 気が散るばかりでまったく集中できない。
  _{(気ばかり散って is understandable but less common)}
• 気がつくだけで何も言わない。
  _{(気だけついて sounds awkward)}
• そんな気がしてるけど、気がしてるだけかも。
  I have that feeling, but maybe it's just a feeling.
  _{(気だけしているのかも sounds very unnatural)}

I don't know the exact reason for this, but it might be because these super-common fixed phrases tend to be recognized as indivisible lexical units, while 気が焦る tends to be perceived as two words.

Answer 2

気ばかり焦る is simply a set expression in Japanese using the noun 気 and the particle ばかり. Here, 気ばかり means "at the limits of one's feelings/spirit", which suits the verb 焦る "to be anxious" well. You could conceivably use synonyms of anxious, but it would sound strange.

It's a bit like asking if you can use a noun other than "pie" in the phrase "it's easy as...". You could do this, but it wouldn't be the same timeworn expression anymore.