This article examines the principal lexical and semantic features of English proper idioms — the most prototypical and most opaque category of phraseological units. On the lexical level, the article discusses semantic opacity, structural fixedness, limited grammatical flexibility, the presence of archaic and culturally specific components, polylexical structure, historical and cultural motivation, and stylistic-connotative coloring. On the semantic level, it addresses non-compositionality, figurative and metaphorical motivation, semantic unity (global meaning), connotative and emotive meaning, and polysemy with contextual variation.
The Lexical-Semantic Features of English Idioms
DOI:
Keywords:
Proper idioms
phraseology
English lexicology
lexical features
Abstract
References
Cowie, A. P. Phraseology: Theory, Analysis, and Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Moon, R. Fixed Expressions and Idioms in English: A Corpus-Based Approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
Nunberg, G., Sag, I. A., & Wasow, T. (1994). Idioms. Language, 70(3), 491–538.
Swinney, D. A., & Cutler, A. (1979). The access and processing of idiomatic expressions. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18(5), 523–534.
Gibbs, R. W. The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Fernando, C. Idioms and Idiomaticity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Wray, A. Formulaic Language and the Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Kövecses, Z., & Szabó, P. Idioms: A view from cognitive semantics. Applied Linguistics, 17(3), 326–355.1996.