Idiom syntax: Idiosyncratic or principled?

Tabossi, Patrizia; Wolf, Kinou; Koterle, Sara

doi:10.1016/j.jml.2009.03.003

Cited by 31 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 24 publications

(32 reference statements)

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“…knocked over the vase). Using acceptability judgment of familiar and invented idioms Tabossi, Wolf, and Koterle (2009) argue that the syntax of idioms is governed by the same syntactic and pragmatic principles that govern non-idiomatic language. These findings highlight the difficulty in distinguishing between 'stored' and 'computed' forms.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

More than words: Frequency effects for multi-word phrases

Arnon

Snider

2010

Journal of Memory and Language

542

462

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

More than words: Frequency effects for multi-word phrases

Arnon

Snider

2010

Journal of Memory and Language

542

462

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“…e.g. Cignoni, Coffey, & Moon, 1999;Omazić, 2003;Tabossi, Wolf, & Koterle, 2009). For example, constituent verbs and adjectives of competition idioms vary systematically to create antonymous expressions, e.g.…”

Section: Idiom Variation In Business English Textbooks: a Corpus-basementioning

confidence: 99%

Idiom Variation in Business English Textbooks: A Corpus-Based Study

Parizoska¹,

Rajh²

2017

ESP Today

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This paper deals with the variation of idioms from sport which are used to talk about competition in business, e.g. a level playing field. In business English textbooks they are listed in one form, whereas corpus data show that they occur in two or more lexical and/or syntactic forms. Furthermore, it has been shown that alterations result in a change in the overall meaning of the idiom and that different variation types serve specific functions. In order to explore the variability of idioms included in business English textbooks, we conducted two corpus studies of ten competition idioms. The aim is to show that competition idioms vary lexically and syntactically, and that there may be considerable differences between the textbook form and those in which the idioms occur in the corpora. In addition, we will give a cognitive linguistic account of how different variation types affect the idiomatic meaning and what functions they fulfil. The findings may have implications for teaching figurative language in ESP given that (1) idiom variation presents a challenge to non-native users of English, (2) idioms are frequently creatively exploited in discourse, and (3) idioms are used not only to convey information but also evaluation.Key words idioms, variation, business English, textbook, corpus. * Corresponding address: Jelena Parizoska, Studij dizajna, Frankopanska 12, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. IDIOM VARIATION IN BUSINESS ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS:A CORPUS-BASED STUDY Vol. 5(1)(2017): SažetakTema ovoga rada je varijantnost engleskih idioma koji tržišnu konkurenciju opisuju na osnovu sporta, npr. a level playing field 'ista pravila za sve'. U udžbenicima poslovnog engleskog jezika ti se idiomi navode u samo jednom obliku premda podaci iz korpusa pokazuju da se javljaju u dva ili više leksičkih i(li) sintaktičkih oblika. Prethodna istraživanja pokazuju da upotreba idioma u različitim oblicima ujedno znači i promenu njihovog značenja, kao i da se različite vrste varijanata upotrebljavaju u različite svrhe. U ovom radu prikazujemo dva korpusna istraživanja varijantnosti deset idioma koji se odnose na tržišnu konkurenciju, a koriste se u udžbenicima poslovnog engleskog jezika. Cilj nam je da pokažemo kako ti idiomi imaju promenljiv leksički sastav i strukturu, te da postoje značajne razlike između oblika idioma navedenih u udžbenicima i oblika koji se javljaju u korpusu. Uticaj različitih vrsta varijanata idioma na njegovo značenje i funkciju tumači se u teorijskom okviru kognitivne lingvistike. Rezultati imaju važne posledice za poučavanje figurativnih izraza u engleskom jeziku struke, uzevši u obzir sledeće: (1) varijantnost idioma predstavlja velik izazov za neizvorne govornike engleskog; (2) u diskursu je česta kreativna upotreba idioma; (3) idiomi nisu samo način prenosa informacija, nego imaju i evaluativnu funkciju.Ključne reči idiomi, varijantnost, poslovni engleski jezik, udžbenik, korpus.

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“…However, there is a large degree of variability among expressions, and while some are almost entirely frozen (e.g., kick the bucket), others accept almost every operation (e.g., lay down the law). Understanding the syntactic behavior of idioms is a central task for any theory of idiom processing, and several alternatives are currently under debate Sprenger et al, 2006;Tabossi, Fanari, & Wolf, 2009;Tabossi, Wolf, & Koterle, 2009). So far, there are no data bases available on idiom flexibility.…”

Section: Syntactic Flexibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, "The bucket was kicked by John" loses its figurative meaning for most speakers of English. How people deal with the syntax of idiomatic expressions both in comprehension and production is an open issue (Cutting & Bock, 1997;Gibbs & Gonzales, 1985;Konopka & Bock, 2009;Sprenger, Levelt, & Kempen, 2006;Tabossi, Wolf, & Koterle, 2009).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…To date, most researchers agree that idioms are not processed as lexical items and form a very heterogeneous class, which varies in terms of syntactic flexibility and semantic analyzability (Cacciari & Glucksberg, 1991;Cacciari & Tabossi, 1988;Gibbs, 1992;Glucksberg, 1993;Nunberg, Sag, & Wasow, 1994). Various models have also been proposed to explain how these expressions are mentally represented and processed (Cutting & Bock, 1997;Sprenger et al, 2006;Tabossi, Fanari, & Wolf, 2009;Tabossi, Wolf, & Koterle, 2009). Also, interesting research is conducted on how children acquire the ability to use idiomatic expressions (Ackerman, 1982;Cacciari & Levorato, 1989;Gibbs, 1987Gibbs, , 1991Levorato & Cacciari, 1995;Levorato, Nesi, & Cacciari, 2004), how idiom knowledge and processing are disturbed in aphasic patients (Hillert, 2004;Papagno, Curti, Rizzo, Crippa, & Colombo, 2006;Papagno, Tabossi, Colombo, & Zampetti, 2004), and what structures in the brain are responsible for the processing of idioms and other types of figurative language (Sidtis Van Lacker, 2006).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Descriptive norms for 245 Italian idiomatic expressions

2010

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The present study reports descriptive normative measures for 245 Italian verbal idiomatic expressions. For each of the idiomatic expressions the following variables are reported: Length, Knowledge, Familiarity, Age of Acquisition, Predictability, Syntactic flexibility, Literality and Compositionality. Syntactic flexibility was assessed using five syntactic operations: adverb insertion, adjective insertion, left dislocation, passive and movement. The psycholinguistic relevance of each dimension, their measures and the correlations among them are provided and discussed. The databases are freely available for down-loading from the Psychonomic Society Web archive at www.psychonomic.org/archive/. Keywords Idiomatic expressions . Descriptive norms . ItalianIdiomatic expressions are usually characterized as linguistic expressions whose meaning is not a direct function of the meanings of their components: according to the syntax of English, the figurative meaning of kick the bucket ("to die") cannot be derived by combining the meaning of kick, the, and bucket. As a consequence, the comprehension and production of these expressions are not adequately explained by standard models of language comprehension and production, which typically rely on the principle of semantic compositionality. In fact, they call for specific models, and much research has been conducted to elucidate how idioms are recognized and produced in their citation

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Idiom syntax: Idiosyncratic or principled?

Cited by 31 publications

References 24 publications

More than words: Frequency effects for multi-word phrases

More than words: Frequency effects for multi-word phrases

Idiom Variation in Business English Textbooks: A Corpus-Based Study

Descriptive norms for 245 Italian idiomatic expressions

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