Lexicography in Italy: Specific Themes and Trends

Verbal Idioms with Body Part Nouns: A Dictionary Perspective on Inalienable Possession in Italian

“…Thus, a verbal idiom (in the sense defined by Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 273) such as andare con i piedi di piombo '[move with the feet of lead] to tread carefully' 7 is to be found under the heading andare and not under one of the more specific words of the idiom as is the case, for instance, in the Collins Italian Dictionary (2005), where the Italian idiom appears under the headword piombo 'lead'. 8 In addition, a convenient system of usage labels adopted by Il dizionario della lingua italiana even for idioms -a feature taken over from De Mauro (2000a), the six-volume version of the same dictionary, see Marello (2004) for a critical review -makes it easy to obtain a homogeneous data collection. The idioms to be investigated are, in fact, all labelled CO (i.e.…”