engleski

The influence of constructional schemas on the lexical and syntactic flexibility of verbal idioms in Croatian

The aim of this paper is to show that the overall lexical and syntactic flexibility of verbal idioms is determined by the configuration of a particular event schema they reflect. Using data from the hrWaC corpus, we will show that the more specific the event schema, the less flexible the idiom ; and the more schematic the event schema, the more flexible the idiom. The results of a corpus study of verbal idioms with force-dynamic verbs in Croatian show that event schemas form a scale of specificity: the action schema is the most specific, the transfer schema is placed in the middle of the cline, and the motion schema is the most schematic. Overall, the results show that the lexico-syntactic flexibility of verbal idioms is constrained on two levels: locally within a given idiom (by conceptual motivation and the idiomatic meaning of particular expression), and globally by constructional schemas and their configurations.

idioms, variation, constructional schemas, corpus, Croatian

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