engleski

Premodification by adjectives in Croatian verbal idioms

Studies of idiom modifications in different European, including Slavic, languages (Langlotz 2006 ; Добровольский 2007) have shown that the insertion of premodifier adjectives is very common (e.g. rock the political boat ; попасть в жестокую переделку ‘get into a tight corner’), and that two types of adjectives are added: those referring to the noun constituent, and those referring to the entire idiom. However, it is unclear which of the two prevail and why. The aim of this paper is to show that premodifiers in Croatian verbal idioms follow a pattern different from their use outside of idioms, which is a result of the constructional and metaphorical nature of idiomatic expressions. In order to analyze adjective use in idiomatic and non-idiomatic constructions, we performed a study of 308 verbal idioms in the hrWaC corpus, analyzing adjectives occurring in prenominal position, according to type (descriptor, classifier) and function in the idiom (stable constituent, open slot filler, additional element), and checked them against the most frequent adjectives in hrWaC. In contrast to the general sample where descriptors prevail, the most common type of premodifiers in the idiom sample are classifiers. Descriptors occur only infrequently, as largely stable constituents that are part of an idiom’s conceptual core (e.g. zeleno ‘green’ in dobiti zeleno svjetlo ‘get the green light’). These are mainly predicating adjectives, in line with the literal, source domain meaning of the idiom. Classifiers occur most commonly as open slot fillers and additional elements. In open slots, they may be used to specify the participant that the idiom refers to (e.g. hrvatski ‘Croatian’ in voda na hrvatski mlin ‘grist for the Croatian mill’). When classifier adjectives are inserted as additional elements, they specify the target domain that the meaning of the idiom applies to (e.g. kamen oko vrata ‘burden’ > politički kamen oko vrata ‘political burden’). Classifiers may be attached to idioms which already contain adjectives (dobiti europsko zeleno svjetlo ‘get the European green light’), which does not happen with descriptors. In all of these cases, classifiers may be analyzed as domain adjectives (Sullivan 2013), which signal the target domain that the idiomatic expression (referring to the source domain) should be applied to. On this analysis, it is the constructional and metaphorical nature of idiomatic expressions that brings about a change in the distribution and usage patterns of premodifier adjectives in idioms.

verbal idioms, premodification, adjectives, Croatian

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