Naslov
Force-dynamic schemas and lexico-syntactic variability of idioms in Croatian

Autori
Parizoska, Jelena ; Filipović Petrović, Ivana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Skup
3rd International Symposium on Figurative Thought and Language (FTL3)

Mjesto i datum
Osijek, Hrvatska, 26.04.2017. - 28.04.2017

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
idioms, variation, force dynamics, constructional schemas, Croatian

Sažetak
Studies on idiom variation in different European languages have shown that a considerable number of verb phrase (VP) idioms vary their lexico-syntactic structure and that this variation is systematic. The types of variations involved are stative vs. dynamic, causative vs. non-causative, possessives, etc. Variation of VP idioms in Croatian also displays regularity. For example, idioms containing a prepositional phrase with u (‘in’) vary systematically to construe the relationship between a trajector and a landmark from different perspectives, which is reflected in the changes to syntactic structure and lexical items (verbs). It has been shown that lexico-syntactic variations are constrained by conceptual and discourse factors. However, most studies have focused almost exclusively on semantic constraints such as idiomatic meaning and cognitive mechanisms motivating individual expressions, whereas constructional factors have not been taken into account. Given that VP idioms describe event schemas which are expressed as sentence patterns with a predicate and one or more arguments, is it reasonable to assume that grammatical constructions influence the type of variants idioms occur in? The aim of this paper is to show that the variability of idioms is constrained by grammatical constructions. We analysed 100 idiom types which contain force-dynamic verbs using data from the Croatian web corpus hrWaC. The results show that variation is dependent on the type of constructional schema: action, transfer or motion. Thus, idioms describing actions which are coded as transitive patterns also occur as intransitive or middle constructions. Idioms describing transfer have variant realizations with the agent and the recipient coded as the subject respectively. Idioms describing motion are the most flexible: they occur as caused-motion and self-motion constructions, as constructions describing motion to and from a location, as well as constructions describing stative and dynamic events. Overall, the results show that lower level constraints co-exist with higher level constraints, i.e. constructional schemas. This means that lexico-syntactic variability of idioms is dependent on the interplay of local and global factors.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija

POVEZANOST RADA