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H K / T R C P I: Somebody The Benefit of The Doubt), or Intransitive Verbs (E.g., To Feel A Bit Under The Weather)

The document discusses different ways that idioms can be classified and analyzed. It notes that idioms exist on a spectrum from decomposable to non-decomposable. Idioms also vary in their syntactic structures, from sentential to non-sentential forms. Additionally, idioms differ in their degree of literality, from unambiguous non-literal meanings to more ambiguous literal interpretations. The document examines these various dimensions to idioms in order to provide a nuanced understanding of their complex nature.

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63 views2 pages

H K / T R C P I: Somebody The Benefit of The Doubt), or Intransitive Verbs (E.g., To Feel A Bit Under The Weather)

The document discusses different ways that idioms can be classified and analyzed. It notes that idioms exist on a spectrum from decomposable to non-decomposable. Idioms also vary in their syntactic structures, from sentential to non-sentential forms. Additionally, idioms differ in their degree of literality, from unambiguous non-literal meanings to more ambiguous literal interpretations. The document examines these various dimensions to idioms in order to provide a nuanced understanding of their complex nature.

Uploaded by

veronica
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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HANNA KĘDZIERSKA / THE ROLE OF CONTEXT IN THE PROCESSING OF IDIOMS

Figure 1. The Superlemma Model (Sprenger et al. 2006: 176)

However, the issue of idioms’ decomposability still cannot be considered as resolved,


especially since the division between decomposable and non-decomposable idioms started to
be more carefully analysed and investigated in experimental research, which gives the
scholars an opportunity for fine-grained inquiries into this topic (to be discussed later in this
chapter; see section 2.2.).
Even on the basis of various properties of the examples provided at the very beginning
of this chapter (i.e., additional literal meaning of the expression to kick the bucket, and the
lack of thereof in, for example, to pop the question), it seems obvious that there are various
types of idioms: they may be classified according to various features they possess (for
instance, literality, ill or well-formedness, transparency, composibility, predictability, and
many others) and the classification criteria are often far from being uniform.
First, idioms have various syntactic structures. According to Kvetko (2009), idioms
can be classified into: sentential (proverbs, e.g., Actions speak louder than words), and non-
sentential (Kvetko 2009: 27-28). Speaking of the latter group, its members may consist solely
of verb phrases, headed by transitive (e.g., to burn your bridges), ditranstive (e.g., to give
somebody the benefit of the doubt), or intransitive verbs (e.g., to feel a bit under the weather).
There are idioms whose head is a noun that can be modified by an adjective (e.g., last straw)
or by another noun (e.g., cupboard love), to mention only a few possibilities. Finally, there

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HANNA KĘDZIERSKA / THE ROLE OF CONTEXT IN THE PROCESSING OF IDIOMS

are adjective-headed idioms, an instance of which would be safe and sound, or idioms headed
by an adverb, as in: once in a blue moon. The syntactic structure might be susceptible to
modification, though. With respect to this statement, it might be illustrative to make reference
to the definition of idioms provided by the Cambridge Dictionary which, at least on the face
of it, does not significantly differ from the one provided by Canal et al. (2015): an idiom is “a
group of words in a fixed order that have a particular meaning that is different from the
meanings of each word on its own” (entry: Idiom, n.d.). It is notable, however, that the words’
order within the whole expression does not necessarily have to stay fixed. On the contrary,
they are very likely to change in some cases. Sometimes, it is possible to transform an idiom
from active into passive voice (e.g., to spill the beans into the beans were spilt), without
affecting its figurative meaning. Also, idioms can be modified, for instance, with an adverbial,
and they are likely to undergo a substitution, i.e., some of the idiom’s constituting elements
may be replaced by synonymous words or phrases. An example worth mentioning here would
be to button your lips in which the verb to button can be substituted with one of its synonyms
as, for instance, to fasten (Traxler 2012: 290).
Idioms can also be divided with respect to the degree of literality they possess. Going
back to the two examples mentioned above, to kick the bucket is an example of a literal idiom,
i.e., the one whose meaning is ambiguous. The level of plausibility of this additional literal
meaning an idiom possesses can also differ, and thus is considered to be scalar. To illustrate
the point, an expression such as to cry over spilt milk can be perceived as ambiguous but its
literal meaning is, undoubtedly, less plausible when compared to the non-figurative meaning
of such an idiom as, for instance, to break the ice, as the situation denoted by the latter one
would be more common when judged by a native speaker of English. On the other hand, there
are idioms, which possess only one, purely non-literal meaning and, consequently, are
categorized as unambiguous. Among this group, one could find, e.g., the above-mentioned to
pop the question, or to go for broke.
In addition, there are ill and well-formed idioms, with the first category comprising all
expressions whose composition violates certain syntactic and/or semantic rules, as to go
bananas. Well-formed idioms are said to be created according to the rules of grammar, as, for
example, to paddle your own canoe (both examples provided by Cieślicka et al. 2011: 1).
Moreover, idioms, along with many other figurative expressions such as compounds, can be

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